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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.
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Pete Hegseth compares media to the Pharisees, ancient Jewish sect derided by Christians
(JTA) — Almost exactly seven years after a presidential candidate stopped referring to “Pharisees” in response to allegations of antisemitism, another prominent political Pete has invoked the term.
And this time, it’s not just Jews but Christians who are finding the allusion offensive.
In 2019, it was Pete Buttigieg, then an Indiana mayor on the verge of declaring his Democratic presidential run, who compared an adversary to Pharisees, the sect of ancient Jews who are portrayed as hypocrites in the New Testament.
“There’s an awful lot about Pharisees in there,” Buttigieg told the Washington Post while speaking about then-Vice President Mike Pence, a Republican who frequently touted his Christian values. “And when you see someone, especially somebody who has such a dogmatic take on faith that they bring it into public life, being willing to attach themselves to this administration for the purposes of gaining power, it is alarmingly resonant with some New Testament themes, and not in a good way.”
Scholars of ancient Judaism and liberal Jewish leaders objected, saying that the term carried antisemitic implications even if not intended that way. Just days later, Buttigieg’s team announced he would no longer use the term, saying, “We appreciate the people who have reached out to educate us on this.”
Now, it’s Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth who has derisively name-dropped the sect, understood to be precursors of modern rabbinic Judaism in their approach to Jewish practice.
Speaking to members of media on Thursday, Hegseth said he had thought of the Pharisees in church when his minister preached about a New Testament story describing Jesus entering a synagogue and healing someone sick.
“The Pharisees — the so-called and self-appointed elites of their time — they were there to witness, to write everything down, to report,” he said. “But … even though they witnessed a literal miracle, it didn’t matter. They were only there to explain away the goodness in pursuit of their agenda.”
An 1843 engraving of Jesus with the Pharisees by Friedrich August Ludy, after a painting by Johann Friedrich Overbeck. (Getty Images)
To Hegseth, the comparison was clear amid critical coverage of the U.S. war on Iran. “Our press is just like these Pharisees. Not all of you, not all of you, but the legacy Trump-hating press, your politically motivated animus for President Trump nearly completely blinds you from the brilliance of our American warriors,” he said. “The Pharisees scrutinized every good act in order to find a violation, only looking for the negative.”
The invocation alarmed some Jews who heard it, according to posts on social media. They were responding with an awareness that in Christian tradition, the Pharisees have come to be thought of as “hypocrites, fools and a brood of vipers, full of extortion, greed, and iniquity,” as the Jewish scholar of early Jewish-Christian relations Amy-Jill Levine put it in a 2015 article arguing that Christian criticism of the Pharisees is antisemitic.
But this time, the comparison triggered a sharper outcry among some Christians and conservatives, because it likened Donald Trump and the U.S. military to Jesus at a time when the president has roiled some of his Christian base by posting an AI image of him as a Jesus- or God-like figure. (He said the image was depicting him as a doctor rather than Jesus, then deleted the picture.)
“Hegseth and Trump need to leave the religious jargon out of this,” wrote Peter Laffin, a senior editor at the conservative Washington Examiner, on X. “It is grotesque to compare the press to Pharisees, because it implies that they, Hegseth and Trump, are Jesus. “This is a hole they need to stop digging.”
The Jesus image closely followed Trump’s sparring this week with Pope Leo XIV. After the pope criticized the Iran war, Trump lambasted him on Truth Social, saying he should “get his act together” and implying that Trump played a role in his appointment. The pope rejected Trump’s criticism, adding fuel to a feud that has captivated Catholics around the world and even reshaped elements of Italian politics.
Soon after Hegseth’s speech, Pope Leo XIV tweeted again: “Woe to those who manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic, and political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth.”
Hegseth’s comments come as the Trump administration has injected overtly Christian ideas, references and practices into government activities. They were not his only comments citing scripture to draw criticism this week. He has also been mocked for quoting a biblical verse — Ezekiel 25:17 — using not the text found in Jewish or Christian texts but the one used by a character in Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction” to justify violence.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Jewish groups urge Trump to prioritize Americans held in Iran during ceasefire talks
(JTA) — The American Jewish Committee is calling on President Donald Trump to make the return of Americans in Iranian custody an “urgent national priority,” as his administration works to preserve a fragile ceasefire with Iran.
“The United States must be unequivocal: the wrongful detention or hostage-taking of Americans will not be accepted or sidelined,” the ADJ said in a statement issued jointly with other North American groups. “Our adversaries must recognize that harming Americans has lasting consequences, and Americans must be assured that their government will pursue their return with unwavering resolve.”
Along with the AJC, the call came from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation, the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights and United Against Nuclear Iran. The co-founders of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum U.S., the American branch of the group that advocated for the Israeli hostages in Gaza, also signed on.
The groups celebrated the Trump administration’s record of negotiating hostage releases, writing that it had “already demonstrated an extraordinary record in recovering Americans from hostile regions, securing the release of over 70 Americans since January 2025, including every last hostage held in Gaza, living or deceased.”
The groups wrote, “The ability of the U.S. to lead in the recovery of not just Americans held in Gaza, but to secure the release of all hostages taken by Hamas showcases that the time to act decisively is now.”
Among those in captivity is Robert Levinson, a Jewish retired FBI special agent who went missing in Iran in 2007 during a business trip. Levinson’s family announced that he had died in Iranian custody in 2020.
“President Trump has brought more than 70 Americans home since January 2025,” Levinson’s family said in a statement. “We urge him to make Bob and every American held in Iran a priority in these talks — and to demand that the men responsible for our father’s abduction finally account for what they did. After 19 years, please help our family get the truth we need to move forward, and give our heroic father the justice he so rightfully deserves.”
The statements came as Trump announced that Israel and Lebanon had agreed to a 10-day ceasefire, a condition that Iran has said was essential for any longer-term peace deal with the United States and Israel.
On Friday, Trump told Axios that he expected a permanent deal with Iran to be reached “in the next day or two,” and negotiators for the two countries are expected to meet over the coming days.
The potential deal, which has largely focused on suspending Iran’s nuclear activity, is not expected to include any provisions about the release of American hostages, which are often handled through separate negotiations. In 2023, former President Joe Biden negotiated the release of five American prisoners in Iran in exchange for releasing $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets.
There are signs that the United States is interested in securing the release of Americans in Iran. In February, Secretary of State Marco Rubio designated Iran as a “state sponsor of wrongful detention,” writing in a release at the time that “for decades, Iran has continued to cruelly detain innocent Americans, as well as citizens of other nations, to use as political leverage against other states.”
While it is unclear exactly how many American hostages are currently in Iranian captivity, United Against Nuclear Iran currently maintains a list of 13 individuals.
“The Iranian regime must stop taking hostages and release all Americans unjustly detained in Iran, steps that could end this designation and associated actions,” Rubio said. “We encourage it to do so.”
The Jewish and pro-Israel group are calling on the Trump administration to “make the safety, security, and freedom of Americans held captive in Iran a top priority and ensure this is integrated into broader strategic discussions regarding Iran.”
They added, “We stand ready to work with the Administration to bring every American held in Iran home safely and swiftly. There is no time to waste—the moral and strategic imperative is clear.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Trump’s antisemitism envoy says US will bar World Cup attendees tied to antisemitism abroad
(JTA) — Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun, the U.S. special envoy for monitoring and combating antisemitism, said this week that the United States will bar individuals from attending the World Cup who are accused of fostering antisemitism in their home countries.
“The president and the secretary of state have made it perfectly clear that people who want to sow discord in this country are not welcome here,” Kaploun told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Friday. “People who want to bring their brand of hate to the United States with antisemitism are not welcome. Coming to this country is a privilege. It’s not a right.”
Kaploun’s comments on a potential ban were first reported by Euractiv, which said he told a European Jewish Association conference in Brussels that the United States was “holding countries accountable for ministers who are saying things, and they are not being allowed into the country.”
But Kaploun dismissed Euractiv’s report that the United States would institute a ban specifically on European politicians, instead saying that “everybody is judged as an individual.”
“If there is a minister that is promoting, you know, there are people who are promoting right-wing antisemitism or left-wing antisemitism,” Kaploun said. “Either way, coming to the United States is a privilege, not a right, and everybody is judged on making sure that they’re going to be coming to this country, that they’re going to not ferment hate.”
The FIFA World Cup, which will be hosted in cities across the United States, Mexico and Canada from June 11 to July 19, will be the organization’s largest event to date, featuring 48 national teams.
The countries that qualified include several that have battled openly — and in some cases literally — with Israel, such as Iran, Turkey and South Africa. (Israel, which has faced widespread calls to be banned from the Union of European Football Associations, will not participate, having lost in qualifying competition last year.)
Participating countries also include several where antisemitism is seen to be on the rise or where U.S. officials have sparred with leaders over issues related to Jewish safety — for example Belgium, where the U.S. ambassador recently challenged the health minister publicly over the arrest of mohels who performed Jewish circumcisions.
Kaploun, who was confirmed as antisemitism envoy in December, has taken aim at antisemitism in Europe in recent months, including in January when he split with the president of the Conference of European Rabbis over the root of antisemitism in the region.
Kaploun’s comments came as FIFA President Gianni Infantino confirmed at CNBC’s Invest in America Forum on Wednesday that Iran would participate in the World Cup, despite its ongoing war and fragile ceasefire with the United States and Israel.
“The Iranian team is coming for sure, yes,” Infantino said. “We hope that by then, of course, the situation will be a peaceful situation. As I said, that would definitely help. But Iran has to come. Of course, they represent their people. They have qualified. The players want to play.”
On Thursday, Andrew Giuliani, the executive director of the White House FIFA World Cup task force, told Politico that the Trump administration did expect Iran to be in attendance.
“I’m not going to speak for the Iranian team, but I will say that the president, when I’ve talked to him, has invited the Iranian team here,” Giuliani said. “The president of FIFA made a statement, I think, yesterday, that they’re going to be coming. So we expect them here.”
Discussing who could be affected by potential bans, Kaploun pointed to those involved in the October decision by England’s Aston Villa Football Club to prohibit Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters from attending a match, as well as individuals tied to the violence in Amsterdam last year that left several Maccabi Tel Aviv fans injured.
“Those people who are responsible for what occurred in Amsterdam at the soccer matches, or that are responsible for the lies that ended up resulting in tourists, people, not being allowed to come to a soccer match — those people who do those things will be held accountable and aren’t welcome to come to the United States of America,” Kaploun said.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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