JTA — In the safe confines of a gathering of Jewish fundraising and communal professionals, Sarah Hurwitz’s remarks about antisemitism and Holocaust education earned polite applause. By the time they made it to social media, they’d become kindling in a rhetorical firestorm over the Gaza war — and the uses and abuses of Jewish memory.

Hurwitz — a former speechwriter for both Barack and Michelle Obama who has written two books about her embrace of her Jewish identity as an adult — was one of three panelists at the opening plenary of the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America in Washington on November 16. They were asked to address antisemitism and Jewish identity at a “crossroads.”

Speaking from notes, she began her remarks with the fairly uncontroversial observation that “young people” are exposed to a media diet that amplifies the fringe, including antisemitic influencers such as Nick Fuentes. She also made the somewhat more contentious point that images of “carnage” in Gaza are making it hard for defenders of Israel like her to debate “facts and arguments” with younger Jews.

But then she veered into talking about Holocaust education, suggesting that the Jewish “bet” on promoting Holocaust education had backfired, at least as a vaccine against antisemitism.

“Holocaust education is absolutely essential,” she said. “But I think it may be confusing some of our young people about antisemitism, because they learn about big, strong Nazis hurting weak, emaciated Jews, and they think, ‘Oh, antisemitism is like anti-Black racism, right? Powerful white people against powerless black people.’ So when on TikTok, all day long, they see powerful Israelis hurting weak, skinny Palestinians, it’s not surprising that they think, ‘Oh, I know the lesson of the Holocaust is you fight Israel. You fight the big, powerful people hurting the weak people.’”

Hurwitz’s framing could be seen as descriptive, explaining how the emotional structure of Holocaust education — emphasizing victimhood, power imbalance and trauma — leads some students to align emotionally with Palestinians rather than with Jews. She went on to suggest that moral lessons from the Shoah are often taught in a way that’s too binary — oppressed vs. oppressor, powerless vs. powerful — without helping students understand how antisemitism functions in complex ways, even when Jews have sovereignty and power.

But beyond the General Assembly audience, the backlash was fast and fierce. Instagram and Reddit filled up with posts accusing her of saying, as one post put it, “that it was a mistake to teach Americans that genocide is bad.”

Jenin Younes, legal director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, accused Hurwitz of using Holocaust trauma to silence criticism of Israel’s military operations.

“Holocaust education is not failing,” she said. “It’s succeeding — because it is teaching young people to recognize oppression........

© The Times of Israel