As International Holocaust Remembrance Day approaches on January 27, American Jewish Committee (AJC) today released new data showing that an overwhelming consensus of Americans – both Jews and the general public – support Holocaust education in public schools and measures to invest in resources to teach about the Holocaust and to assess the effectiveness of these lessons.
As part of AJC public opinion surveys conducted this past fall, a vast majority of Americans say it is important to them for:
- Public schools to invest more resources in teaching age-appropriate lessons about the Holocaust for all students (91% for American Jews and 85% for U.S. adults);
- Statewide studies to be conducted to assess how effectively public-school districts are teaching the Holocaust (87% for American Jews and 81% for U.S. adults);
- State and local governments to include contemporary antisemitism in public school curricula (86% for American Jews and 75% for U.S. adults); and
- State and local governments to include Jewish studies within the ethnic studies or history curricula in public schools (77% for American Jews and 72% for U.S. adults)
All four of these action items echo steps outlined in the U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism released by the Biden Administration last May. AJC is leading the effort to implement the National Strategy, which includes dozens of AJC’s recommendations from AJC’s Call to Action Against Antisemitism in America.