In Germany, schools are mandated to teach about the Holocaust. Perhaps it’s time we took a page from their book.
It should also deeply bother and spur into action every Jew who has ever said “Never Again” and meant it.
As a community, we know firsthand the importance of learning from the horrors of the past — and ensuring that the wider public is educated about them.
This should be a ‘Jewish issue’ too
Yet this latest bill strikes at the very core of Judaism’s commandment to learn from history. It’s not just about the Holocaust. Every year during Passover, we contemplate what it means to have been slaves and are literally commanded to experience the holiday as if we are in Egypt ourselves — and then learn from it how to treat others.
This isn’t just about sympathizing with another group. Within the Jewish community, we have members who are Black and multiracial. Teaching about African American history and culture involves teaching about the history of African American Jews, and for that reason alone, we should see it as a Jewish issue.
DeSantis’ strategy isn’t new. Throughout history, those bent on inflaming racial and ethnic tensions, or those who simply wanted to use an easy scapegoat, have tried to limit how we talk about the past.
“DeSantis is using an age-old trick used to persecute groups like members of the African and Jewish diasporas; he is striking aim at memory and practice of tradition and culture,” says Michael Twitty, a writer whose works examine his Black and Jewish identity and whose book Koshersoul recently won the National Jewish Book Award.
When I reached out to hear his reaction to the news, Twitty cited examples such as Christian leaders in Europe calling for the burning of Jewish texts and American white slaveholders forbidding enslaved people from sharing their culture. “It’s clear that his war with cultural and historical literacy is pointed and intentionally devastating,” he adds.
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