Today is Sunday, December 10, 2023. In a new disturbing poll, one in five young Americans believes the Holocaust is a myth, which dovetails with the shocking rise of anti-Semitism unleashed in this country and abroad following the Israeli-Hamas conflict on October 7. The results of this poll are revealed in an online The Telegraph article written by Susie Coen and James Crisp. These findings are particularly sensitive amid growing accusations of anti-Semitism on U.S. university campuses since the start of the Middle East conflict.

With the poll, it was older Americans who were far more likely to believe the historical fact of the Holocaust, the failed attempt by Hitler and his cohorts to exterminate the Jewish people. A reason for this stance taken by young people is fake news propagated on social media that is watched by these young Americans, which found the proportion of Americans who believe the Holocaust is a myth was similar across all levels of education. The findings are found in a YouGov/The Economist poll.

According to the poll, about 20 percent of people aged 18 to 29 believe the murder of six million Jews is a falsehood. An additional 30 percent said they did not know whether the Holocaust was a myth or not.

That suggests only half of Americans aged 18 to 29 are convinced the Holocaust happened.

Another disturbing fact from the survey is that young people were also nearly five times more likely to think that Jews have too much power in the nation than those aged 65 or over. Some 28 percent of young respondents agreed with this well-worn anti-Semitic trope, compared to just 6 percent of older Americans.

These disturbing findings have emerged as concerned parents are overhauling their children’s applications to Ivy League universities in response to some university leaders refusing to condemn calling for the genocide of Jews as hate speech.

All of this anti-Jewish sentiment has coincided with congressional hearings being held this past Tuesday, in which the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), Harvard, and Massachusetts of Technology (MIT) have offered testimony to House representatives. One of those Ivy League presidents, Liz Magill, the president of UPenn, has since resigned over her unwillingness to portray hate speech against Jews as hate speech. In her testimony, McGill inscrutably told Elise Stafanik, House GOP Conference Chair, no person of high ethics herself, that context was required to assess whether calling for a genocide against Jews constituted “harassment.” Thus McGill couldn’t easily have condemned anyone calling for genocide against the Jews as anti-Semitic. She initially released an apology video after her testimony was given, but it wasn’t enough to stem the backlash against her and she stepped down as of yesterday.

Harvard and UPenn are among the schools being investigated by the U.S. Department of Education over complaints of anti-Semitic and Islamophobic discrimination.

In trying to blame a ubiquitous social media platform for this shocking view on the Holocaust held by young people, Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley claimed during the disastrous repugnican debate last Wednesday that young people become “17 percent more anti-Semitic” every time they spend 30 minutes or more on TikTok per day. Whether this is true or not is hard to say; however, the former South Carolina governor has made banning TikTok one of the main pledges of her presidential campaign. The findings of the poll do suggest that social media is the villain here which ensnares young people with lies and misinformation. Where are our schools here in teaching students the facts behind the Holocaust?

The results of this poll should perturb all of us in their conclusions about what young people believe – or not believe – about the Holocaust. We must make it our mission to get the truth out about the Shoah to our young people who will be tomorrow’s leaders. They cannot be allowed to hold onto false views about this cataclysmic event for the Jewish people.

Have a good week.

Stay safe and be well.