Oklahoma legislature advances Holocaust education bill
The Oklahoma state legislature. (Oklahoma House of Representatives Facebook page.)
(JTA) — An Oklahoma state House committee unanimously approved a bill that would mandate Holocaust education in Oklahoma schools.
The bipartisan-backed bill that the House of Representatives Appropriations and Budget Education Subcommittee approved Tuesday would direct schools in the state to work with Holocaust experts to develop a curriculum for students from grade six through 12, Oklahoma News 4 reported.
John Waldron, the Democrat who authored the bill with Republican Mark McBride, cited the recent spike in antisemitic attacks in explaining the need for the bill.
“Our greatest generation liberated the Nazi concentration camps that killed 11 million people, including six million Jews,” he said. “Yet knowledge of the Holocaust is declining in Oklahoma and America. Antisemitic hate crimes are on the rise.”
Nazi Germany murdered six million Jews in the Holocaust. An ahistorical figure of 11 million, meant to include non-Jews murdered by the Nazis, has been debunked but persists in the popular imagination.
At least 22 states have Holocaust education laws on the books, according to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
—
The post Oklahoma legislature advances Holocaust education bill appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
