What a historic morning! Governor Kate Brown signed SB664 on July 15 which mandates Holocaust and genocide education in the state of Oregon at OJMCHE. She was surrounded by Survivors and both Jewish and non-Jewish members of our community. We will have a Flickr album up soon with more photos. If you took any photos during the event, tag us on social media or email them to us! We’d love to see them.
Remarks from OJMCHE Director Judy Margles
This is a historic day for Oregon and I am so pleased to welcome you to the OJMCHE. Indeed, a mandate for Holocaust and genocide education has been the dream of our community for years.
Recent studies have shown a steady rise in the number of Americans who now either do not know or remember many of the details of the Holocaust or who deny its reality. All of us here today, and especially those of us who work in Jewish institutions, recognize that teaching the history of the Holocaust and other genocides is critical.
Jewish history is a prism that refracts and illuminates oppression as it has been variously expressed throughout world history. Holocaust history may speak to specifically a Jewish experience, yet it simultaneously addresses universal issues of injustice and the dangers of denying diversity. The Holocaust was not an isolated event, but rather one of many genocides that continue to happen to the present day.
Today, this means educating our students in the currently rising tides of hate, something that we must do with appropriate urgency and professional accuracy. And Oregon, as we alarmingly know, houses a disproportionately large number of white nationalist and hate-based organizations that proliferate across the country. The Holocaust and Genocide Education Bill offers the opportunity for students to study the major dilemmas of our time, better understand how the current connects to the past and provide hope for a future in which human dignity can play a greater role than ever. I am again reminded of the words of Timothy Snyder who makes us aware that authoritarianism always begins with the advance obedience of the thoughtless and the disorientation of the thoughtful. A curriculum that reaches all students throughout Oregon can empower them to avoid such thoughtlessness and to think critically about how genocides occur and how to take action to prevent them.