Antisemitic events are rising in Idaho. Better Holocaust education could help fix it | Opinion
Every morning, I am anxious to see what new headlines will greet me.
As an American Jew, I am all too aware of the alarming upward trend of antisemitism we are witnessing. We have a government that states they are going to combat antisemitism aggressively, yet it feels as though we are experiencing more visible antisemitism than ever.
People on the left accuse those on the right of antisemitism just as those on the right accuse people on the left of the same actions. We need to realize that there is no antisemitism from the left or the right; it is simply antisemitism. The imagery may be different, but the message remains the same. People hate Jews.
The Jew-hatred we see today is nothing new. It is merely something that has morphed to fit modern-day narratives. The accusation of blood libel has been around for over 2,000 years. The allegation of Jewish dual loyalty has been around for a similar amount of time. There is nothing new or original about the antisemitism we are seeing today.
I urge you to try taking five minutes to view the comments on public social media posts that have something to do with Judaism. It is almost guaranteed that there will be at least one ignorant comment trying to push this modern version of Jew-hatred.
Ask a Jewish student if they have experienced antisemitism in school. Ask how many Holocaust “jokes” they have heard from their peers. When a prominent community members think these jokes are acceptable, why would we expect less from youth? When a celebrity supposedly makes $40 million selling t-shirts with a swastika design, how are youth supposed to not view it as socially acceptable?
Idaho is not immune to the current global rise in antisemitism. People in the Treasure Valley may have recently seen swastikas spray painted on the Cloverdale overpass on I-84.
Even more recently, there have been social media clips of a local business CEO doing the Nazi salute. He admittedly has stated that the salute was meant to be a joke poking fun at the current political climate.
Unfortunately, there is nothing funny about the sieg heil. Instead, it is a glaring reminder of how our Holocaust education has failed students.
If Holocaust education were done responsibly, there would be an understanding that there is no humor in standing on a stage doing the motion of the sieg heil. When will we realize that inadequate Holocaust education plays a prominent role in this continuing trend?
Sometimes, it feels as though it can be difficult to escape this loud surge of Jew-hatred we are seeing.
As an American, I am a full believer in free speech. Instead of looking at free speech negatively, we should look at why people think this behavior is socially acceptable.
Those who fall into this new trend of pushing and spreading Jew-hatred have not had the opportunity to accurately learn history and, more specifically, the Holocaust. We are doing a disservice to our youth when we fail to teach them the history that we seem ever doomed to repeat.
As an Idahoan, I am asking for us to do better.
This story was originally published February 25, 2025 at 4:00 AM.