At the end of April’s Genocide Awareness Month and on the cusp of May’s Jewish American Heritage Month, Senator Anna Kaplan (D – Great Neck, Nassau County) put on a full-court press in an attempt to get a standardized understanding of how and how often the Holocaust is taught in New York state schools.
Previous attempts to legislate this course of educational study have been defeated in the Assembly, according to Senator Todd Kaminsky (D – Long Beach, Nassau County).
“There were definitely some communities that wanted a more fulsome history of the swastika being a peaceful Hindu symbol originally and when we see the hatred that we’ve seen against the Asian-American community our goal is to be bonded as one; not to have divisions and fighting intolerance,” Kaminsky said. “Senator Kaplan’s bill has that support. This is going to be our primary motivation to address this topic this year.”
The swastika is viewed as a symbol of divinity and spirituality in Eastern religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. In the United States and Europe prior to 1920, the swastika was widely used in Europe at the start of the 20th century. It symbolized many things to the Europeans, with the most common symbolism being of good luck and auspiciousness, according to a citation in Wikipedia.
“There is legislation on the books that every child, age 8 years and up, should get some type of Holocaust education in school,” Kaplan noted. “We don’t know how it’s working. We know that it’s failing in certain areas. We want to find ways where we can measure and actually find out what we can do better in terms of educating the children.”
The justification section of the bill memo states:
It is not lost on us that the horrors of the Holocaust are not forgotten with this year’s International Holocaust Remembrance Day marking only 72 years since the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Every moment we have to honor the innocent lives lost at the hands of state-sponsored persecution and murder is a step forward in condemning hate and violence rooted in intolerance and oppression. Not only is it our societal responsibility to commemorate the lives lost, we must continue making conscious efforts to educate future generations on how important human rights declarations are in the prevention of genocide.
Recent news stories have featured a controversial high school assignment in which students were instructed to provide their “Nazi point of view” in support of the Holocaust. This troubling assignment comes amidst a rise of anti-Semitic vandalism and threats of violence against our communities. Passage of this legislation would ensure that all of our children are accurately taught about this moment in history so that we can truly live up to our pledge of never again.
The bill would mandate three orders for the state education department to follow.
The proposed measure authorizes the commissioner of education to conduct a study to determine which school districts are offering instruction on the Holocaust;
It also authorizes that the commissioner shall provide a report on the findings of such study to the governor and legislature by the first of January after this act has become law; and
The bill directs the commissioner to disseminate rules and regulations ensuring school districts are offering instruction on the Holocaust in compliance with education law.
A recent study shows New Yorkers 18 to 39 years of age have shockingly poor awareness and understanding of the events of the Holocaust; with 58% unable to name a concentration camp, 19% believing that Jews caused the Holocaust and 28% believing the Holocaust is a myth or has been exaggerated.
Michael Cohen, eastern director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, says he’s surprised when town officials tell him that swastikas are here for reasons that trivialize the Holocaust and that maybe vandals didn’t know or understand the meaning of the hateful symbol.
“If you don’t know what a swastika is in this day and age we’re not educating our students properly on Holocaust education, if you don’t understand the hate that it breeds,” Cohen said. “We’re not showing what symbols of hate really mean.”
Nily Rozic (D – Fresh Meadows, Queens), the sponsor of the bill in the state Assembly, says the educational component about the Holocaust goes beyond swastikas.
“We’re not achieving the results we need that students and young people in particular do not know the atrocities of the Holocaust,” Rozic, whose mother is a Holocaust survivor, said. “We see that from the Holocaust fades from memory as survivors pass away that anti-Semitism and hate crimes are on the rise, according to various studies.
“With anti-Semitic incidents and neo-Nazi sentiments and rhetoric rising in New York drastically this educational requirement is crucial. It is imperative for schools to teach the lessons of the Holocaust to ensure students remember the consequences of hate and inaction. This must be an effort at all levels of government going from school boards on up to the state level. So far we’ve fallen short. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” Rozic noted.
Agudath Israel of America issued a memo in support of passage of the bill stating:
“Young adults in the US do not know enough about the Holocaust. About 12% of young Americans (18-39) have not heard of the Holocaust, while almost half cannot name a single concentration camp or ghetto (of which there were over 40,000), and 36% think that less than two million Jews perished in the Holocaust. Perhaps even more disturbing, is that the state of New York, which is home to the highest percentage of Jews in the US, ranks first in those who believe that the Jews are to blame for the Holocaust at 19%, with 28% also believing that the Holocaust is a myth or has been exaggerated, again the highest in the nation. Young New Yorkers rank 41st out of the 50 states in overall knowledge of the Holocaust.
“At the same time that Holocaust knowledge is extremely low, anti-Semitism is high and rising, especially in New York. For example, in 2020, 87% of religiously motivated hate crimes in New York City were anti-Jewish according to NYPD hate crime statistics. Holocaust denial and distortion are high, with about half of young adults reporting to have seen Holocaust denial or distortion on social media or online.
“It is clear to us that knowledge of the Holocaust for young New Yorkers is lacking and anti-Semitism is disturbingly prevalent. It is the belief of Agudath Israel of America that this bill is imperative in the fight against hate and anti-Semitism.”
The bill has been bottled up in the Senate Education Committee, chaired by Senator Shelley Mayer (D – Yonkers, Westchester County), who is Jewish.
As for Jewish American Heritage month, President Joseph Biden issued a proclamation stating in part:
“Alongside this narrative of achievement and opportunity, there is also a history – far older than the Nation itself – of racism, bigotry, and other forms of injustice. This includes the scourge of anti-Semitism. In recent years, Jewish Americans have increasingly been the target of white nationalism and the anti-Semitic violence it fuels.
“As our Nation strives to heal these wounds and overcome these challenges, let us acknowledge and celebrate the crucial contributions that Jewish Americans have made to our collective struggle for a more just and fair society; leading movements for social justice, working to ensure that the opportunities they have secured are extended to others, and heeding the words of the Torah, ‘Justice, justice shall you pursue.’
“A central concept in Judaism, ‘l’dor v’dor,’ or ‘from generation to generation,’ recognizes both the continuity of the Jewish people and the intergenerational responsibility we have to heal the world for our children. During Jewish American Heritage Month, we honor Jewish Americans, who, inspired by Jewish values and American ideals, have engaged in the ongoing work of forming a more perfect union.”
No such similar proclamation was issued by New York’s governor, or either house of the state legislature.