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holocaust
Top Dem Speechwriter Says Young Jews' Empathy for Gaza Shows Holocaust Education Has Backfired
"Holocaust education is too successful, it made the kids anti-holocaust while Israel is trying to do one," quipped one prominent critic.
Nov 19, 2025
A speechwriter for prominent Democrats including former President Barack Obama and presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and John Kerry faced widespread outrage this week after video emerged of her blaming Holocaust education for young Jews' empathy for Palestinians in Gaza and revulsion at Israel's genocidal war there.
Earlier this week, Sarah Hurwitz—who was also a senior speechwriter for former First Lady Michelle Obama and other Democrats—spoke at the opening plenary of this year's Jewish Federations of North America general assembly in Washington, DC. The event featured speakers including Free Press staff writer Olivia Reingold, who implicitly attempted to absolve Israel from blame for the Gaza famine by noting that 12 of the at least 463 Palestinians who starved to death had preexisting health conditions.
"There have been huge shifts in America on how people think about Jews and Israel, and I think that is especially true of young people," Hurwitz said during the panel discussion, noting the rise of social media as a primary source of news and information.
"Today, we have social media," she added "Its algorithms are shaped by billions of people worldwide who don't really love Jews."
Hurwitz continued:
It's also this increasingly post-literate media. Less and less text, more and more videos, so you have TikTok just smashing our young peoples' brains all day long with video of carnage in Gaza. And this is why so many of us can't have a sane conversation with younger Jews, because anything we try to say to them, they are hearing it through this wall of carnage. So I wanna give data and information and facts and arguments and they are just seeing in their minds carnage, and I sound obscene.
"I think, unfortunately, the very smart... bet we made on Holocaust education to serve as antisemitism education, in this new media environment, I think that is beginning to break down a little bit, because Holocaust education is absolutely essential," Hurwitz asserted.
"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," she added, "...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.'"
Reaction to Hurwitz' remarks ranged from incredulity to anger.
"I am almost literally speechless," American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee nation legal director Jenin Younes said on X. "She's decrying the fact that kids' takeaway from Holocaust education has been that we must protect helpless people from powerful people killing them. The real lesson from the Holocaust, it seems, is that Israel must be able to commit genocide if it wants to."
Argentinian economist Maia Mindel also took to X, writing that it is "extremely grim that a substantial number of very influential people seem to think that the lesson from the Holocaust isn't 'mass murder of civilians based on their ancestry so your nation can take their land is wrong' but rather, 'Fuck you, got mine.'"
Jewish Currents editor-at-large Peter Beinart wrote on X that "the level of condescension" in Hurwitz's commentary "is quite remarkable."
Writer Bryce Greene lamented: "We're at the point where Israels supporters are now claiming that the Holocaust was not bad because it was the powerful attacking the weak."
"No, that would be the wrong lesson from the Holocaust," he added. "According to them it was only bad because Jews were the victims. Real sick shit."
Independent journalist Ahmed Eldin said on X that "Zionism is so morally bankrupt it sees empathy as a design flaw."
Eldin wrote Wednesday on his Substack that "Hurwitz didn’t slip up—she said the quiet part out loud and exposed the Zionist project for exactly what it is."
"She even admitted that, amidst the carnage, she sounds 'obscene,'" he noted. "That admission, said almost accidentally, is the closest thing to honesty her worldview will allow: The problem is not the violence of Zionism itself, but the visibility of it. Zionism, as she inadvertently revealed, depends not on morality but on opacity. The ideology requires not less brutality, but simply fewer witnesses."
Moving on to Holocaust education, Eldin wrote:
According to Hurwitz, Holocaust curricula have “backfired” because they taught young people that “you fight the big powerful people hurting the weak people.” In her telling, this universal ethical principle—this most basic moral intuition—is the problem.
The implication is staggering: the “correct” lesson of the Holocaust, she seems to believe, is not “never again for anyone,” but “never question Israel.” What outrages her is not the suffering of Palestinians but the possibility that young people are recognizing it as suffering.
"A world that is witnessing and seeing Palestinians as human is a world in which Zionism cannot function," Eldin concluded. "A world that sees the violence cannot romanticize the ideology producing it. Once people witness the truth, the mythology cannot be resuscitated and the propaganda cannot be rehabilitated."
"Israel may be able to flatten Gaza’s buildings, but it cannot rebuild the ignorance it once relied upon," he added. "The truth is already out, the narrative collapse well underway, the mask irretrievably gone."
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What My Jewish Family’s Holocaust Experience Teaches Me About an Appalachian Mamdani
Sam Rasoul, a Palestinian-American State Legislator in Virginia, campaigns on affordability amid false charges of anti-Semitism.
Oct 31, 2025
In 2019, I visited my ancestral home in a small town in northwestern Germany named Prussian Oldendorf. Through genealogical research, I had learned that my Jewish ancestors—I am 100% Ashkenazi Jew genetically, as well as a proud Jew by upbringing and choice—had lived there for centuries, until my great-great-grandmother, Rosalie Cahen, a single mother with six children, fled persecution by the German authorities and immigrated to America in 1859.
I had read that there was a Jewish cemetery just outside of town that had been made intentionally hard to find because neo-Nazis had desecrated it in the 1980s. I found the cemetery and saw that many of the gravestones were my direct ancestors with the last name of Cahen, my mother’s maiden name. I also found the gravesite for Philipp Cahen, Rosalie’s husband and my great-great-grandfather.
Additionally, with the help of an old college friend from Germany who lives close to Prussian Oldendorf and who did much of the research necessary to make my visit possible, I found the retired pastor of the town’s 500-year-old Lutheran church who had restored the Jewish cemetery after its desecration. The pastor, who had protected and maintained the cemetery for decades, had come to Prussian Oldendorf at the end of World War II, having fled the Red Army as it rolled west as part of the destruction of the Third Reich. The pastor told me he had spoken out—to the great dismay of many of his parishioners—about how the townsfolk had remained silent during the Holocaust as their Jewish neighbors were disappeared.
According to the pastor, every single Jew in that town—save for one—was sent to the extermination camps and murdered by the Nazis.
As I was getting ready to leave Prussian Oldendorf, I walked past the Lutheran church, and something caught my eye on the ground.
There were small square stones, which I later learned were known across Europe as Stolpersteine or stumbling stones, embedded in the cobblestone courtyard surrounding the church. Inscribed upon the stumbling stones were the names of the townsfolk who were sent to the camps, when they had died, and the names of the camps.
Treblinka
Terezin
Sobibor
Auschwitz
Many of those stumbling stones bore our family name, Cahen.
Seeing these stones, I crumbled to the ground and cried, right there outside the church. When I was finally able to compose myself, I did two things. First, I quietly cursed the monsters who committed these atrocities: “You bastards.”
And then I thanked my great-great-grandmother Rosalie for having had the courage to leave some 80 years before the Holocaust because, if she had stayed, her descendants surely would have been exterminated. Suddenly, the old saying, “There but for the grace of God go I,” had a special and very tangible resonance.
Which brings me to Sam Rasoul, a proud Palestinian-American state legislator who has represented southwestern Virginia and Roanoke City in the Virginia General Assembly since 2014. Like Zohran Mamdani, a fellow Muslim state legislator who is campaigning on a platform of affordability for working people and who is poised to become the next Mayor of New York City, Rasoul leans into speaking out against injustices, including in Palestine. However, he does so not because he is Muslim nor because of his Palestinian heritage—he speaks out because he believes in intersectional justice for all, as evidenced by his work for the communities he represents.
As Rasoul puts it:
In my 11 years in the General Assembly, I have worked to lower healthcare costs, pushed for intersectional justice through a Green New Deal, advanced the socioemotional health of our children, fought to raise teacher pay to the national average, and advocated for good government in limiting the influence of special interests in our government.
I have worked closely with Delegate Rasoul for almost 10 years in environmental justice fights in Virginia that he has helped to foster and lead, most particularly the fight to save the historic African American community of Union Hill in Buckingham County. Union Hill was under assault by Dominion Energy, the state’s monopoly utility company, which wanted to build a massive pipeline compressor station there as part of the now-cancelled Atlantic Coast Pipeline. That fight was won through a relentless coalition-building campaign that brought together diverse communities from across the Commonwealth, and with the help of national civil rights organizations.
Delegate Rasoul was at the forefront of what would become the winning fight to save Union Hill, and he helped bring along most of his Democratic colleagues to join that fight. During that campaign, I watched as, at first, Rasoul worked quietly behind the scenes to garner support from his colleagues in the House for Union Hill, and then as he galvanized national support for the fight, travelling out of state to meet with Karenna Gore, a prominent environmental justice advocate and the daughter of former Vice President Al Gore, also an environmental champion. Rasoul’s work complemented the work of many others, particularly those who lived in the frontline community of Union Hill, and their efforts culminated in a large rally in Buckingham County featuring former Vice President Gore and civil rights leader Rev. William Barber II.
I came to know Delegate Sam Rasoul—his given name, Salam Rasoul, means “peace messenger”—as a kind and decent family man and a relentlessly positive and inclusive politician.
Rasoul is now running for reelection, and he has been attacked by his Republican-turned-“independent” opponent as “consumed with hate,” a laughably false smear, as anyone who has actually met or knows Rasoul can attest. Some in his own party have even chimed in, citing his outspoken denunciation of what Israel has done to Gaza for the past three years.
So let me say this as directly as I can—as a proud Jew who was not only brought up in a Zionist household, but whose relatives were exterminated in one of the greatest genocides in human history.
Let me say this as someone who understands the lessons of my own family heritage, that “never again” means never again—for anyone.
Israel has committed, and continues to commit, unspeakable war crimes against innocent civilians, mostly women and children—in Gaza.
Israel has committed, and continues to commit, genocide in Gaza, and is now moving to the West Bank.
As with the Holocaust, the years that follow will show who was on the right side of history, who spoke out, and who remained silent. I believe I am on the right side of history, and many proud Jews like me are not only on the right side of history but are helping to lead the worldwide movement to stop the genocide.
Delegate Rasoul is also on the right side of history.
But Rasoul is not running for reelection in Appalachia because Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
Rasoul is running so he can continue to do what he has always done: fight injustice, and deliver for the people he represents in Roanoke—on pocketbook issues, affordability, healthcare, education, utility bills, environmental justice, and more.
If Rasoul prevails on November 4, it will represent a defeat for the politics of cynicism and demonization and a victory for the politics of inclusivity and lifting up communities.
It will send a message from Appalachia and beautiful Southwest Virginia all the way to New York and Washington, DC and around the world, that denouncing a genocide is a moral imperative, born of generations of tragedy, for all communities.
Most importantly, if Rasoul wins, it will prove that “never again” truly means never again for anyone, and that we should not only tolerate, but encourage, politicians denouncing injustice while simultaneously fighting for the basic needs of the communities they represent.
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'Never Again' Unless Maybe You Thought That Included Palestinians, Holocaust Museum Says By Deleting Post
"Palestinians are so dehumanized that they're excluded from 'never again,'" said one researcher.
Sep 08, 2025
"Unbelievable" yet entirely predictable was how Palestinian rights supporters described a decision by Holocaust Museum LA in Los Angeles over the weekend to take down a social media post that had stated a clear opposition to all genocide, no matter the victims.
The museum had shared a post with its 24,200 Instagram followers last week that read, "Never again can't only mean never again for Jews," repeating a sentiment expressed by Jewish-led human rights groups and the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, named for the Holocaust survivor who coined the term "genocide."
"Jews were raised to say, 'Never again,'" the post continued. "That means never again. For anyone."
But the post was met with a barrage of angry comments from pro-Israel users and groups including the organization Stop Antisemitism, which calls itself a Jewish civil rights watchdog group and has spent months targeting public figures who criticize Israel's assault on Gaza and express support for Palestinians, more than 63,000 of whom have been killed by Israeli forces since October 2023.
The group—which earlier this year called on the US Department of Justice to investigate whether children's entertainer Ms. Rachel is funded by Hamas due to her support for Palestinian rights—called on donors to the museum to "redirect [their] giving our way, an organization that focuses solely on the Jewish people and fighting the bigotry we face."
An account with 30,000 followers was among those that accused the museum of "feeding into the genocide libel"—suggesting that the finding by numerous international rights organizations, the Lemkin Institute, and Israeli human rights groups that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza is comparable to medieval "blood libels" against Jewish people.
The museum responded to the comments by taking down the post and issuing an apology that appeared intent on denying the organization has any concern for Palestinians currently facing a famine orchestrated by the Israeli government and daily attacks as Israel enacts its plan to take over the entire Gaza Strip.
The original post, said the museum, had been intended to "promote inclusivity and community," but was "easily open to misinterpretation by some to be a political statement reflecting the ongoing situation in the Middle East."
"The was not our intent," the organization added, promising to more thoroughly vet its social media content in the future to ensure its message "always remains clear."
The museum's overall message to the public, suggested the apology, is not that all populations must be protected from genocidal violence—a statement that left Ryan Grim of Drop Site News "speechless."
Grim said the museum's position appeared to be, "If you denounce genocide, some might think you're being critical of Israel and we can't have that."
The apology itself, said Laila Al-Arian of Al Jazeera's "Fault Lines," would not be out of place "in a museum someday showing how genocides happen."
Writer and researcher Ismail Aderonmu added that the museum, which was founded by Holocaust survivors, had stepped back from "the clearest moral lesson of the Holocaust: Never again for anyone."
Human rights lawyer Yasmine Taeb told Al Jazeera that Holocaust Museum LA's original post had simply appeared to acknowledge what "countless genocide scholars and human rights organizations" have already said: that "what Israel is doing in Gaza is textbook definition of genocide."
"It's appalling that a museum established for the purpose of educating the public about genocide and the Holocaust not only refuses to acknowledge the reality of Israel's actions in Gaza, but [is] removing a social media post that merely stated that 'never again' is not intended for just Jews, in order for it to not be interpreted as a response to the genocide in Gaza," Taeb said.
Assal Rad, a researcher at Arab Institute Washington, DC added that the apology was dehumanizing to Palestinians in Gaza and the US.
"Palestinians are so dehumanized that they're excluded from 'never again,'" said Rad. "Apparently their genocide is the exception."
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