Irish schoolbooks ‘trivialise Holocaust’, report warns
Auschwitz is portrayed as “a prisoner-of-war” camp, and, in contrast to other religions, Judaism appears as the religion which uniquely endorses violence
Jenni Frazer is a freelance journalist
Troubling aspects of education about Jews, Judaism and Israel have been revealed in Ireland’s school textbooks, according to a new report by the Tel Aviv-based organisation IMPACT-se.
The findings, the first in a new survey of eight selected European countries, describes “Holocaust minimisation”, in which Auschwitz is portrayed as “a prisoner-of-war” camp, and, in contrast to other religions, Judaism appears as the religion which uniquely endorses violence.
The textbooks examined in the IMPACT-se report are those aimed at pupils aged from 12-13 up to 15-16, and the findings chime with a significant upturn in antisemitism in Ireland and a new surge in anti-Israel sentiment.
Irish school students are asked to learn from history textbooks with an opening illustration on the Nazi state showing the railway line to Auschwitz, with a caption describing it as a “prisoner-of-war camp.
The IMPACT-se report notes: “Referring to the Holocaust as ‘the systematic destruction of the Jewish race’ is problematic for several reasons and could potentially minimise its horrors.
“First, it perpetuates the false Nazi ideology that Jews are a race when, in fact, Judaism is a religion, and Jews are an ethnic group. The Nazis used this racist concept to justify their genocide of the Jewish people.
“Second, the term ‘destruction’ does not adequately convey the systematic, industrialised murder of six million Jewish men, women, and children by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. The Nazis used mass shootings, gas chambers, starvation, and other brutal methods to commit genocide against Jews on an unprecedented scale.
“Thus, the definition “the systematic destruction of the Jewish race” is reductive, inaccurate, and offensive, because it echoes Nazi ideology and minimises the scale and methods of the genocide. Official definitions rightly focus on the Holocaust as the state-sponsored genocide of six million Jews by the Nazi regime due to antisemitic beliefs”.
In a chart in a religious education textbook, looking at religious understandings of peace and war, mainstream religions are shown as “inherently peaceful and non-violent, yet by contrast, Judaism alone is described as holding a belief that ‘violence and war are sometimes necessary to promote justice’”.
The report says that there are many hostile references to Israel in the Irish textbooks, frequently in relation to Biblical education or religious values. When the parable of the Good Samaritan is discussed, for example, the illustration shows a Palestinian boy protesting against Israel.
In another edition of the same textbook, students are asked “How could the Old Testament notion of the covenant relate to the situation in Israel and Palestine today?” It is implied that the expectation of treating neighbours and foreigners with special care is not met by Israel, and consequently the right of Jewish sovereignty in the land of Israel is diminished.
Many narratives, the report says, “question the legitimacy of the state of Israel and undermine Jewish claims on the land. Additionally, discussions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict often lack the necessary historical and political context, presenting a one-sided view that frames Israel as the sole aggressor”.
Marcus Sheff, chief executive of IMPACT-se, said: “Textbooks are a window into what societies will look like in years to come. As such, Irish textbooks are deeply troubling. The Holocaust is glossed over and at times minimised, in an age where the butchering of Jews is fresh in the memory. The Irish curriculum views Jews and Judaism as a lesser part of Ireland’s social fabric, while Israel is exclusively portrayed as antagonistic. In this context, the worrying growing hostility that Jews and Israelis in Ireland are experiencing, should come as no surprise. If Ireland’s leaders wish to reverse this trend, then they must place the country’s curriculum high on their agenda.”
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