With Antisemitism on the Rise, Teachers Turn to the Museum for Help
By: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Tags: Holocaust, Antisemitism

Countering anti-Jewish hatred has always been a Museum priority. Now, our efforts have taken on new urgency. Educators at last summer’s Belfer conferences focused on new resources to inoculate their students from antisemitism.

It keeps happening.

From swastikas scrawled on bathroom stalls to teens arranging their red cups in that unmistakable shape during a drinking game, there has been a disturbing rise in antisemitic incidents across America. And then in October 2018, an avowed antisemite and hater walked into the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh and slaughtered 11 people just because they were Jewish.

Antisemitism has always been core to how we teach this history and a subject of the Museum’s long-running Arthur and Rochelle Belfer National Conferences for Educators. These new teachers of the Holocaust are prompted to consider the role antisemitism played — not the sole cause, but a necessary precursor to what happened. And they learn about the long history of antisemitism, in particular some of the stereotypes and myths that characterize it. The training prepares them to discuss the question students ask over and over again when they first learn about the Holocaust: Why the Jews?

But following the Pittsburgh attack, with antisemitic violence in the news, teachers were asking for help on the Museum’s online chat group for Holocaust educators. How were they going to discuss antisemitism with students hearing the term for the very first time?

After receiving those requests last October, the William Levine Family Institute for Holocaust Education quickly updated the “Teaching about Antisemitism” web page and created a new lesson plan tailored to today’s media environment. It helps teachers to respond in real time as students see news about antisemitic incidents they might not understand.

In addition to the lesson plan, the revised web page includes links to the Holocaust Encyclopedia articles on antisemitism. These have been viewed more than 358,000 times since Pittsburgh.

As Amy Bruneau, a middle school English teacher at Legacy Christian Academy in Andover, Minnesota, put it, “The lesson relates the content to the students’ world currently and allows them to see how it relates to things they are exposed to every day. It sets them up to be knowledgeable enough to identify acts of antisemitism and provides the confidence to make a difference.”

Social Media Specialist Hannah Meyer demonstrates for teachers how to use the Museum’s Instagram stories to talk with students about issues in the news. (In the background photo from October 1938, German women salute Hitler. —Courtesy of William Gallagher)

“Helping teachers feel comfortable talking about antisemitism is more important now — when students see hate online and on social media — than it might have been a decade ago,” said Kim Blevins-Relleva, program coordinator for the Museum’s educational initiatives.

Social media is an increasingly important part of our ability to reach a broad public and especially young people. In addition to the lesson plan, teachers attending the Belfer conferences — and the more in-depth Pines, Sarna, Statfeld Summer Institute for the Museum Teacher Fellowship Program — learned about the Museum’s new Instagram series on antisemitism, a new social media tool the Museum has developed to reach young people where they are.

“Young people are bombarded with information and they need to know how to process it and sort fact from fiction,” said Blevins-Relleva. Whether in the classroom or on social media, the Museum is giving them the tools to think critically about this history