The Holocaust and Wokism

Governor DiSantis during his recent trip to Israel (JTA)

There is a troubling phenomenon taking place with respect to Holocaust education. A phenomenon whose apparent premise is that any publication that deals with the Holocaust is legitimate for study. The implication is that boycotting such books in schools is a form of Holocaust denial at best and antisemitic at worst. That is how the media treats the latest such ban in Florida. From JTA: 

Florida’s state education department rejected two new Holocaust-focused textbooks for classroom use, while forcing at least one other textbook to alter a passage about the Hebrew Bible in order to meet state approval… 

Under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, the state has made an effort to clamp down on what he calls “woke indoctrination,” mostly regarding race and gender. The textbooks’ rejection is the latest example of how that drive is affecting Jewish topics as well. 

I am the child of 2 Holocaust survivors. This subject is very sensitive to me. The mere hint of any kind of Holocaust denial or revisionism disgusts me. But I do not agree that every book written about the Holocaust should be made available to students in elementary schools or high schools as part of a Holocaust curriculum. Not if those books use the Holocaust to promote an underlying agenda. If as I suspect is the case with these books - I hope these books and others like them stay banned.  

Ron DiSantis is not a Holocaust denier. But that would be the conclusion after reading the headline that says he rejected books on the Holocaust. Implying that the Jewish people ought to think twice about supporting him.  That conclusion is clearly wrong. Buried deep in the article is the following: 

DeSantis has advanced Holocaust education…  Florida requires Holocaust education in grades K-12, and in 2020, DeSantis signed a law requiring public schools to certify that they teach about the Holocaust.  

This hardly qualifies as Holocaust denial. So why were these books really banned? I haven’t read them. And it doesn’t help that  JTA didn’t bother spelling it out.  But - from the gist of the article, my guess is that these books had as their subtext a  ‘woke’ agenda. (I hate that term but for lack of a better one, I am using it.) An agenda that tries to compare the Holocaust to the history of racism in this country. And to compare it to discrimination against LGBTQ+ people.  

The remedy of the ‘woke’ agenda is to teach CRT (Critical Race Theory). 

Being ‘woke’ does not just mean being aware that the US has a history of racism. It did. And regrettably there are still pockets of it in America to this day. That  should be taught in the schools. But CRT goes much further than that and says that founding fathers like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were just a bunch of ‘white supremacists’ that built this country on the backs of black slaves who were horribly mistreated. An that their values of tolerance and equality only applied to white people. We ought therefore not treat them as heroes. We should instead condemn them as surely as we condemn white supremacists in our day.

To treat the founding fathers as though they had no redeeming value ignores the founding principles they established that makes this country so great. That they had salves just made them products of their time. There is no evidence that their slaves were mistreated in any way. I am not justifying slavery.  I am just saying that civilization was not enlightened that way back then.  

That should not detract from their founding ideal that all men are created equal. Which is now applied to all Americans regardless of race, religion, or sexual orientation. It’s one thing to acknowledge that the founding fathers were slave owners. But to imply that they were nothing more that an 18^th century version of white supremacists with no redeeming value is to ignore and undermine the very founding principles that has given all Americans a democracy that opened up unprecedented opportunity to all who live here. Unlike any other nation before it.  

Because of those founding principles, being black does not preclude one from achieving great wealth. There are plenty of black entrepreneurs who have become millionaire and even a few black billionaires.  Black people are involved in all the professions, in government, and in academia at all levels. 

I am so tired of the left trying to vilify a true friend of the Jewish people by implying that he is in some way a Holocaust denier when it is absolutely clear that he is the opposite of that. He is in fact one of the best friends the Jewish community has in the political arena. Especially for Orthodox Jews.

I therefore want to thank Governor DiSantis for standing up for principles that – for the most part - I share.