We were two of the youngest Jewish Americans to run for Congress in 2018. We have many things in common, including our upbringing, our core beliefs, our love for Israel, and our reasons for running in the first place against what many said were insurmountable odds.
One of those things that we have in common is the core belief that our elected officials in Congress need to do more to create public policy that educates our next generation about the Holocaust. In April 2018, a group of members of the House of Representatives (four Democrats and four Republicans) introduced a bipartisan bill called the Never Again Education Act (H.R. 5460). The bill was introduced in response to an alarming survey by the Claims Conference, now public, claiming that 66% of American millennials have never heard of Auschwitz.
Furthermore, over 45% of those asked in the survey could not name one of the 40,000 ghettos or concentration camps. But there was a silver lining: nine in 10 responded “yes” when asked if American students should learn about the Holocaust.
The memory of the Holocaust is quickly fading away, while anti-Semitism in America and around the world continues growing.
One of us (Bryan) is the grandson of a Holocaust survivor and the other (Naomi) has relatives who survived the Holocaust. We will never forget about the Holocaust and we are both personally invested in seeing Holocaust education rolled out nationwide. But what about the millions of Americans who don’t have grandparents or relatives that are Holocaust survivors and can’t name a single concentration camp? How will they learn about the Holocaust?
In response to these shocking statistics, these eight members of Congress introduced a bipartisan bill to authorize the Department of Education to provide grants to carry out educational programs about the Holocaust. We and many others applauded these eight members who introduced the bill and started working behind the scenes with our friends, community members, and directly with members of Congress to whip up support for additional cosponsors of the bill.
When the last session of Congress closed, the bill had 53 cosponsors — 33 Democrats and 20 Republicans. The theory behind increasing the number of cosponsors is that it would have increased the likelihood that this bill would be voted on in committee with recommendation for a full vote on the House floor.
Here is where things get weird and well, very frustrating. The bill was referred to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce on April 10, 2018 (the same day the bill was introduced) and there it died without so much as a committee vote. Since the new session of Congress started, a new bill has been introduced. This time, it has over 100 cosponsors. Yet so far, it’s following the same trajectory as last year’s bill.
We are calling on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., House Education Chairman Bobby Scott, D-Va., and the bill’s lead sponsor, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., to call for a committee vote this week and to put the bill on the House floor for a full vote by July.
As the great Dr. Martin Luther King once said, “the time is always right to do what’s right.” This bill is right. Its cause is just, and our members of Congress need to stop mollifying the American people by telling us they care about the rising tide of anti-Semitism yet failing to address it.
This bill is their opportunity to change the tide and have an effect. Will they do it? Your move, Congress.
Bryan E. Leib is a Program Manager for the Israeli-American Council and the 2018 Republican nominee in Pennsylvania’s 3rd Congressional District. Naomi Levin, a software engineer, was the 2018 Republican nominee in New York’s 10th Congressional District.
