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Sarah Hurwitz, former Obama speechwriter, creates firestorm with remarks about Holocaust education
(JTA) — In the safe confines of a gathering of Jewish fundraising and communal professionals, Sarah Hurwitz’s remarks about antisemitism and Holocaust education earned polite applause. By the time they made it to social media, they’d become kindling in a rhetorical firestorm over the Gaza war — and the uses and abuses of Jewish memory.
Hurwitz — a former speechwriter for both Barack and Michelle Obama who has written two books about her embrace of her Jewish identity as an adult — was one of three panelists Nov. 16 at the opening plenary of the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America in Washington. They were asked to address antisemitism and Jewish identity at a “crossroads.”
Speaking from notes, she began her remarks with the fairly uncontroversial observation that “young people” are exposed to a media diet that amplifies the fringe, including antisemitic influencers like Nick Fuentes. She also made the somewhat more contentious point that images of “carnage” in Gaza are making it hard for defenders of Israel like her to debate “facts and arguments” with younger Jews.
But then she veered into talking about Holocaust education, suggesting that the Jewish “bet” on promoting Holocaust education had backfired, at least as a vaccine against antisemitism.
“Holocaust education is absolutely essential,” she said. “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 they think, ‘Oh, 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 you fight Israel. You fight the big, powerful people hurting the weak people.’”
Hurwitz’s framing could be seen as descriptive, explaining how the emotional structure of Holocaust education — emphasizing victimhood, power imbalance and trauma — leads some students to align emotionally with Palestinians rather than with Jews. She went on to suggest that moral lessons from the Shoah are often taught in a way that’s too binary — oppressed vs. oppressor, powerless vs. powerful — without helping students understand how antisemitism functions in complex ways, even when Jews have sovereignty and power.
But beyond the GA audience, the backlash was fast and fierce. Instagram and Reddit filled up with posts accusing her of saying, as one post put it, “that it was a mistake to teach Americans that genocide is bad.”
Jenin Younes, legal director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, accused Hurwitz of using Holocaust trauma to silence criticism of Israel’s military operations.
“Holocaust education is not failing,” she said. “It’s succeeding — because it is teaching young people to recognize oppression and call it out, even when it doesn’t serve political agendas.”
Progressive Jews also objected. “She’s not disagreeing with the moral lesson that we should stand against the powerful harming the vulnerable,” wrote Rabbi Sandra Lawson on Substack. “She’s upset that people are applying it universally. The lesson was supposed to stay contained, meant only for certain victims.”
The point of Holocaust education, wrote journalist Spencer Ackerman, is “[n]ot to exceptionalize Jewish suffering, but to activate solidarity. To recognize that there is a continuum of atrocity perpetrated by dominant classes against subjugated ones.”
Hurwitz’s remarks about a central pillar of Jewish advocacy may have been tailor-made for the JFNA crowd, made up of mainstream Jewish professionals uneasy about whether current tools — Holocaust education, Israel trips, anti-antisemitism training by pro-Irael groups — can stack up against the anti-Israel messages young people encounter. JFNA has joined several initiatives aimed at presenting a more “nuanced” view of the war in Gaza, with the goal of countering misleading or anti-Israel narratives in the mainstream and social media.
But Hurwitz also entered a decades-old — and, since Oct. 7, increasingly fraught — debate over the goals of Holocaust education. Does “never again” mean a universal call to protect human rights and prevent genocide, or is it a narrower call to make sure Jews are never again vulnerable to mass murder? And if the latter, does that somehow inoculate Israel from accusations that it can, in the interest of self-defense, oppress a weaker people?
That debate was at the heart of a dust-up in September, when Los Angeles’ Holocaust museum deleted an Instagram post that proclaimed, “‘Never again’ can’t only mean never again for Jews.” The graphic showed six interlocked arms of different colors, one with an Auschwitz tattoo. Another slide declared: “Jews must not let the trauma of our past silence our conscience.”
The museum explained that it deleted the post because it was “easily open to misinterpretation by some to be a political statement reflecting the ongoing situation in the Middle East.” Indeed, appreciative supporters of Palestine and angry supporters of Israel read the original post as a statement about the death toll and hunger crisis in Gaza.
Ben Ratskoff, an assistant professor at Occidental College in Los Angeles, wrote that the museum’s retraction “reflects a deeper turn away from the universalist approach that has been at the heart of institutional Holocaust memory culture since the 1990s.” Elie Wiesel, he noted, framed the Holocaust as “a Jewish tragedy with universal implications and applications.” In 2000, the Stockholm Declaration, which founded the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, also declared that “the Holocaust will always hold universal meaning.”
“Teaching about the Holocaust,” the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum explains on its web site, “can inspire students to think critically about the past and their own roles and responsibilities today.”
Israeli historian Amos Goldberg noted in July that Holocaust memory in the West deals with a deep tension between two sentiments. In the first, “human rights-oriented” version, “the world pledged itself to human rights, to curbing nationalism, and to strengthening democracy as a lesson from the Holocaust.” The second sentiment, he writes, “was empathy toward the Jews as the primary victims of Nazism, and their perception as Europe’s ultimate ‘Other.’”
With Israel facing accusations of genocide in Gaza — including from Israeli scholars like Goldberg, the International Association of Genocide Scholars and the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem — these divergent lessons of the Holocaust have been fiercely debated, and sometimes weaponized.
After the massacre of Oct. 7, supporters of Israel invoked the Holocaust to express their feelings of vulnerability. “The murderers of Hamas are guided by the exact same goal” as the Nazis, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared at Israel’s official Holocaust Remembrance Day commemoration in 2024. Many pointed out that Oct. 7 was the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust, implying a parallel of effect if not scope.
Palestinians and their supporters also invoked the Holocaust, a comparison that intensified as the war ground on and accusations of “genocide” made the comparison at least implicit.
Jewish groups not only denied the accusation of genocide, but rejected the comparison, whether made by Hamas or the United Nations special rapporteur on Palestine.
“These comparisons are not simply misguided or exaggerated; they have a double-edged effect,” wrote Simone Roadan-Benzaquen, managing director of the American Jewish Committee’s Europe office, in January. “On one hand, they trivialize the Nazi atrocities by equating them with a contemporary conflict, tragic as it may be, that differs fundamentally in purpose and scope. On the other, they invert historical roles, casting Jews — victims of an unparalleled genocide — as today’s oppressors….
“The result is an assault on memory itself.”
Hurwitz served as chief speechwriter for Hillary Clinton during the 2008 presidential campaign, later as senior speechwriter to Barack Obama, and, from 2010 to 2017, as head speechwriter for Michelle Obama. After leaving government, Hurwitz wrote about her personal journey from “lapsed” or “cultural” Jew to one more deeply engaged with its core texts, rituals and history. Her two books on that journey have made her a popular draw on the Jewish lecture and podcast circuit.
It’s by no means clear if Hurwitz intended to say, as critics charge, that Holocaust education was a mistake because it fostered sympathy for the Palestinians. She did not respond to a request for an interview.
But in her latest book, “As a Jew,” published in September, she does argue that Holocaust education fails if it doesn’t explore the full historical scope of antisemitism, or, taking inspiration from the writer Dara Horn, if it doesn’t show how Jews lived in addition to how they died.
“If the main thing you know about antisemitism is the Holocaust, it’s easy to get the impression that antisemitism originated sometime in the twentieth century, and the Holocaust was a one-off — that out of nowhere, after just a few decades of hating Jews, the civilized world lost its mind and started killing them,” she writes.
Her book also includes a spirited defense of Israel, which puts her in the crosshairs of anti-Zionists and other harsh critics of Israel. At the GA, Hurwitz may have been describing the limitations of Holocaust education in teaching about antisemitism, but she waded directly into a fight about applying the lessons of the past to the crises of today.
The post Sarah Hurwitz, former Obama speechwriter, creates firestorm with remarks about Holocaust education appeared first on The Forward.
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German Antisemitism Commissioner Targeted With Death Threat Letter After Arson Attack on Home
Andreas Büttner (Die Linke), photographed during the state parliament session. The politician was nominated for the position of Brandenburg’s anti-Semitism commissioner. Photo: Soeren Stache/dpa via Reuters Connect
Andreas Büttner, the commissioner for antisemitism in the state of Brandenburg in northeastern Germany, has been targeted the second attack in under a week after receiving a death threat, sparking outrage and prompting local authorities to launch a full investigation.
According to the German newspaper Potsdamer Neueste Nachrichten (PNN), the Brandenburg state parliament received a letter on Monday threatening Büttner’s life, with the words “We will kill you” and an inverted red triangle, the symbol of support for the Islamist terrorist group Hamas.
State security police have examined the anonymous letter under strict safety measures, determining that a gray substance inside was harmless. Authorities are now probing the incident as part of an ongoing investigation into threats against the German official.
Ulrike Liedtke, president of the Brandenburg state parliament, condemned the latest attack on Büttner, describing the death threats and harassment as “completely unacceptable.”
“Threats and violence are not a form of political discourse, but crimes against humanity,” Liedtke said. “Andreas Büttner has our complete support and solidarity.”
A former police officer and member of the Left Party, Büttner took office as commissioner for antisemitism in 2024 and has faced repeated attacks since.
On Sunday night, Büttner’s private property in Templin — a town located approximately 43 miles north of Berlin — was targeted in an arson attack, and a red Hamas triangle was spray-painted on his house.
The home of Germany’s antisemitism commissioner, Andreas Büttner, was set on fire overnight in a targeted attack.
His family was inside the house at the time.
This is the second attack against Büttner in the past 16 months. His car was previously vandalized with swastikas. This… pic.twitter.com/cAbFnMIwQ7
— Combat Antisemitism Movement (@CombatASemitism) January 5, 2026
According to Büttner, his family was inside the house at the time of the attack, marking the latest assault against him in the past 16 months.
“The symbol sends a clear message. The red Hamas triangle is widely recognized as a sign of jihadist violence and antisemitic incitement,” Büttner said in a statement after the incident.
“Anyone who uses such a thing wants to intimidate and glorify terror. This is not a protest, it is a threat,” he continued.
Hamas uses inverted red triangles in its propaganda videos to indicate Israeli targets about to be attacked. The symbol, a common staple at pro-Hamas rallies, has come to represent the Palestinian terrorist group and glorify its use of violence.
In August 2024, swastikas and other symbols and threats were also spray-painted on Büttner’s personal car.
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Harvard President Blasts Scholar Activism, Calls for ‘Restoring Balance’ in Higher Ed
Harvard University President Alan Garber speaks during the 374th Commencement exercises at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Brian Snyder
Harvard University president Alan Garber, fresh off a resounding endorsement in which the Harvard Corporation elected to keep him on the job “indefinitely,” criticized progressive faculty in a recent podcast interview for turning the university classroom into a pulpit for the airing of their personal views on contentious political issues.
Garber made the comments last week on the “Identity/Crisis Podcast,” a production of the Shalom Hartman Institute, a Jewish think tank which specializes in education research.
“I think that’s where we went wrong,” Garber said, speaking to Yehuda Kurtzer. “Because think about it, if a professor in a classroom says, ‘This is what I believe about this issue,’ how many students — some of you probably would be prepared to deal with this, but most people wouldn’t — how many students would actually be willing to go toe to toe against a professor who’s expressed a firm view about a controversial issue?”
Garber continued, saying he believes higher education, facing a popular backlash against what critics have described as political indoctrination, is now seeing a “movement to restore balance in teaching and to bring back the idea that you really need to be objective in the classroom.”
He added, “What we need to arm our students with is a set of facts and a set of analytic tools and cultivation of rigor in analyzing these issues.”
Coming during winter recess and the Jewish and Christian holidays, Garber’s interview fell under the radar after it was first aired but has been noticed this week, with some observers pointing to it as evidence that Harvard is leading an effort to restore trust in the university even as it resists conceding to the Trump administration everything it has demanded regarding DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion), viewpoint diversity, and expressive activity such as protests.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Garber has spent the past two years fighting factions from within and without the university that have demanded to steer its policies and culture — from organizers of an illegal anti-Israel encampment to US President Donald Trump, who earlier this year canceled $2.26 billion in public money for Harvard after it refused to grant his wishlist of reforms for which the conservative movement has clamored for decades.
Even as Harvard tells Trump “no,” it has enacted several policies as a direct response to criticisms that the institution is too permissive of antisemitism for having allowed anti-Zionist extremism to reach the point of antisemitic harassment and discrimination. In 2025, the school agreed to incorporate into its policies a definition of antisemitism supported by most of the Jewish community, established new rules governing campus protests, and announced new partnerships with Israeli academic institutions. Harvard even shuttered a DEI office and transferred its staff to what will become, according to a previous report by The Harvard Crimson, a “new Office of Culture and Community.” The paper added that Harvard has even “worked to strip all references to DEI from its website.”
Appointed in January 2024 as interim president, Garber — who previously served in roles as Harvard’s provost and chief academic officer — rose to the top position at America’s oldest and, arguably, most prestigious institution at a time when the job was least desirable. At the time, Harvard was being pilloried over some of its students cheering Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel and even forming gangs which mobbed Jewish students wending their way through campus; the university had suffered the embarrassment of its first Black president being outed as a serial plagiarist, a stunning disclosure which called into question its vetting procedures as well as its embrace of affirmative action; and anti-Israel activists on campus were disrupting classes and calling for others to “globalize the intifada.”
Garber has since won over the Harvard Corporation, which has refused to replace him during a moment that has been described as the most challenging in its history.
“Alan’s humble, resilient, and effective leadership has shown itself to be not just a vital source of calm in turbulent times, but also a generative force for sustaining Harvard’s commitment to academic excellence and to free inquiry and expression,” Harvard Corporation senior fellow Penny Pritzker said in a statement issued on behalf of the body, which is the equivalent of a board of trustees. “From restoring a sense of community during a period of intense scrutiny and division to launching vital new programs on viewpoint diversity and civil discourses and instituting new actions to fight antisemitism and anti-Arab bias, Alan has not only stabilized the university but brought us together in support of our shared mission.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Holocaust Survivors Sent Care Packages to Oct. 7 Hostages for Hanukkah
The Menorah for Hanukkah on the Square 2025 in Trafalgar Square, London, United Kingdom, Dec. 14, 2025. Photo: Matthew Chattle/Cover Images via Reuters Connect
Survivors of the Holocaust spread holiday cheer this Hanukkah by delivering care packages to a group of 20 hostages whom the terrorist group Hamas recently released from captivity to fulfill the requirements of a ceasefire which suspended hostilities with Israel.
The gifts, dropped off at the Israeli consulate office in New York City, was made possible by The Blue Card, the only US-based charity organization which provides financial assistance and other services to survivors of the Holocaust. Originally founded in 1934 to assist Jews who had fled Germany to escape Hitler’s persecution of the country’s Jews, it has operated ceaselessly for nearly a century.
Over the past two years, the world has seen a revival of antisemitism unlike any since the period in which The Blue Card was founded, sparked by the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre that claimed the lives over of 1,200 Israelis and stole years and even more lives from 251 more who were kidnapped and held hostage in Gaza.
Some of the hostages who survived captivity have been released in stages since Israel and Hamas agreed on a ceasefire in October, and on Monday, Blue Card executive director Masha Pearl said the organization felt it necessary to reach out to them due to their having experienced a plight that is painfully familiar to what its clients endured in Europe during the Holocaust. Pearl also discussed the Bondi Beach mass shooting, in which a father and son inspired by Islamism opened fire on Jews celebrating the start of Hanukkah, murdering 15 people and injuring 40 others.
“Holocaust survivors and former hostages share a uniquely painful bond shaped by survival and resilience,” Pearl said. “After witnessing a mass shooting at a Chanukah event in Sydney, it felt even more urgent for our survivors to deliver these care packages now, spreading light at a moment that feels dark for the entire Jewish world. The resilience of the Holocaust survivors we assist, the former hostages, and now the survivors of the attack in Australia remind us that even in the face of hatred and violence, the Jewish people remain united.”
In a press release Blue Card said the care packages “carried profound meaning,” being filled to the brim with goods of all sorts, from blankets and water bottles to chap stick and even handwritten notes from the Holocaust survivors who sent them.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.