Former Obama speechwriter laments that Holocaust education has ‘backfired’ after kids spot that Israel is doing one

The Holocaust is one of the most horrific episodes in the entirety of human history. Sure, there have been countless massacres and mass murders throughout history, but nothing approaches the cold, mechanical, organized precision of what the Nazis did to Jews and countless other minorities.

Understanding the evil that men and women are capable of should be an important part of any child’s education – how else to stop history from repeating itself? But, at least according to author and former Barack Obama speechwriter Sarah Hurwitz, Holocaust education has ‘unfortunately’ been a little too successful.

Hurwitz, speaking to the Jewish Federation of North America, lamented that social media means young people have been exposed to unfiltered images and video of “the carnage in Gaza”, which has turned them against Israel. But it’s her comments on Holocaust education that are truly jaw-dropping:

Fmr Obama speechwriter Sarah Hurwitz laments to Jewish Federation that people are finding content from "Al Jazeera and Nick Fuentes" on social media and seeing videos of "the carnage in Gaza."

Holocaust education has backfired in part as people see Palestinians as Jews' victims,… pic.twitter.com/YQCkjHREVP

— Chris Menahan 🇺🇸 (@infolibnews) November 18, 2025

I think unfortunately the very smart bet that we made on Holocaust education to serve as antisemitism education … is beginning to break down a little bit. Because Holocaust education is absolutely essential, 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 then they think 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 that you fight Israel’, you fight the big powerful people hurting the weak people.”

Those darn kids, always thinking for themselves…

I must have missed the memo where warnings about genocide came with the footnote “Does not apply to Israel”. The point of teaching children about the Holocaust is to encourage them to identify when society’s vulnerable are being targeted, scapegoated, and murdered en masse, and for them to refuse to stay silent about it.

This is a sorely needed lesson, given that minorities in America are currently living under the fear of masked government thugs snatching them off the streets and consigning them to hellish camps with no legal recourse.

Frankly, Hurwitz’s claim that the secret actual motivation behind teaching kids about the Holocaust is to feed them pro-Israel propaganda designed to insulate that country from any criticism sounds like an antisemitic conspiracy theory.

Jenin Younes, the national legal director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, didn’t mince her words on Hurwitz’s comments:

“I am almost literally speechless. 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.”

At the core of this is the inescapable reality that Israel is committing a genocide, that photographic and video evidence of it is readily available for anyone with eyes to see, and that regular people are repulsed by the mass murder of innocents. If you’re looking for someone to blame for rising antisemitism, look no further than the IDF.