When antisemitism is no longer recognized — this is how education fails
- Mar 16
- 2 min read
Antisemitism in Europe is often seen as a phenomenon of the past, particularly associated with the time of the Holocaust, even though it has not disappeared in the present day. When the phenomenon is tied solely to history, it becomes easy to overlook how it changes form and continues in everyday life today.
What happens if we understand antisemitism only through its history, while the phenomenon itself continues to exist and thrive in the present?
UNESCO studied how Judaism and antisemitism are presented in school textbooks in eight EU countries and how more than 2,000 teachers across Europe address the topic in their teaching.
The analysis shows that antisemitism is presented in textbooks almost exclusively as a historical theme, particularly in connection with the Holocaust. Only a small number of the textbooks examined address contemporary antisemitism.
At the same time, in an EU-wide survey, more than three quarters of teachers reported encountering antisemitism in their classrooms, yet many of them have not received training on how to recognize its contemporary forms.
According to UNESCO, contemporary antisemitism can appear as jokes and name-calling, Holocaust trivialization, conspiracy theories, stereotypes, as well as hostile symbols or slogans.
In schools, teachers report encountering Nazi salutes, swastika drawings, and the sharing of antisemitic content on social media. For many young people, these situations may appear as “just joking” or bullying rather than antisemitism, even though a Jewish classmate may experience them very differently.
The same study also shows that teachers do not share a common understanding of what antisemitism means, and some do not recognize even clear antisemitic claims as antisemitism.
Teaching about the Holocaust remains essential. However, education currently fails in two ways:
The Holocaust is often presented as a general “tragedy of humanity,” which obscures the central role of antisemitism within it.
Antisemitism is addressed almost exclusively through the Holocaust, which makes its contemporary forms easy to overlook.
This leads to a situation where people learn to see “Hitlers” everywhere — but fail to recognize antisemitism when Jews are treated poorly today.
When experiences of discrimination are dismissed as exaggeration, antisemitism remains unaddressed — and quietly becomes part of everyday life.
According to UNESCO, education is one of the most important tools for preventing antisemitism, but it works only if it does two things at the same time: teaches the role of antisemitism behind the Holocaust and helps people recognize its contemporary forms.
Teaching about the Holocaust works best when it helps people understand that antisemitism does not belong only to history, but continues in the present.
Although the research examines Europe as a whole, the same phenomena also affect Finland. Antisemitism will not disappear if we teach it only as something from the past. It disappears only when we learn to recognize it in the present as well.
