B.C.’s Jewish community applauds mandated Holocaust education
Posted October 31, 2023 3:28 pm.
B.C.’s Jewish community is applauding a move by the province to mandate Holocaust education in high schools.
Premier David Eby made the announcement Monday and says B.C. is committed to ensuring all students graduate with an understanding of the Holocaust.
Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver CEO Ezra Shanken says the local Jewish community has felt a fair bit of fear and sadness over the last number of weeks after a deadly series of attacks by Hamas in Israel earlier this month.
Shanken tells CityNews this change in education will help build a strong, caring, and more compassionate society, and explains this move is “more important now than ever.”
“The Holocaust has a lot of those lessons that are actually very transferable to many different vulnerable groups within our population in ensuring that we’re here watching each other’s backs and making sure that we create a society in which we all have a place at the table, we all have a space to be here, and that everybody seems to be here in this province,” he said.
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Shanken says education surrounding the Holocaust has long been an option for schools, but making it mandatory presents “a deeply moving moment” for the community.
“To have it being made mandatory will ensure that we can keep the memory of the Holocaust alive,” he said.
Shanken cites the need for accurate information about the Holocaust as another reason this move was necessary.
“Some of the North American statistics are quite shocking — 20 per cent of high school students believe that the Holocaust was either fabricated or was exaggerated,” he said.
“There are many students who have never even heard of the Holocaust.”
The province says this change will come as part of the Grade 10 social studies curriculum starting in the 2025-26 school year.
Eby says the Jewish community and Holocaust survivors will weigh in to ensure local voices are integrated into the new curriculum.
