Roger Tilles' Speech at V4TH Gala
I want to thank the Voices for Truth and Humanity, and especially Jack Britvan, for all of the tireless work to strengthen our mandated New York State Holocaust Education in our schools.
Without the work of this organization, I’m not sure that we could have achieved what we have. Let me give you the status of our efforts: after October 7th, as with all of you I’m sure…I wanted to do something positive that could help the situation which unveiled itself in this country with a wave of antisemitism that has not been seen for many years.
Although we know that it has been there all along-usually from nationalist sympathies, it came bounding back with the rise of the Palestinian Protest Movement. What was anti-Israel sentiment has quickly morphed into full blown antisemitism. In our schools, on college campuses and across our communities…
When I went to the Regents meeting in November, I asked that we strengthen our mandated Holocaust Education standards to include all hate speech and other manifestations of hate. The answer that I received was that they were concerned that any efforts we made would be specifically targeted to the middle east issues, and therefore, they didn’t want to take any action. I was very concerned about this response, so I decided to have a press conference, spearheaded by our wonderful Public Relations Specialist, Gary Lewi, whose father was himself a holocaust survivor.
I had the very strong backing of the Erase Racism group of which I had been a longtime Supporter. They sent a strong Civil Rights Attorney, Fred Brewington, to stand with me in this press briefing on how to counter antisemitism and other hate speech. When I asked others with whom I have been working with for decades to stand alongside me, I received an unimagined response that “they could not be concerned.” At the press conference, Gary arranged for empty chairs with pictures of Nazi Germany to represent “those that could not be concerned.” The conference was well-covered by all New York stations and was seen all over the New York area. Assemblyman Benedetto from New York City was moved by the response and submitted a proposal to the legislature for a half million dollars appropriation to the State Education Department to review, strengthen and provide best practices for the mandated Holocaust Education.
The New York State Education Department (NYSED) is responsible for ensuring public schools provide comprehensive Holocaust education as part of New York’s Education Law, which mandates instruction on topics like the Holocaust, genocide and human rights. The K-12 Social Studies curriculum highlights Holocaust education, particularly in grades 8, 10 and 11, focusing on the Holocaust, the Nuremberg Trials, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The current NYSED materials, Teaching About the Holocaust and Genocide: The Human Rights Series, were developed in the 1980s and are now outdated. These resources predate key revision to the Social Studies standards and do not address more recent genocides or use inclusive language.
The funding will cover content revisions, digital resources, and alignment with modern educational standards, ensuring the materials are accessible and relevant for educators and students across New York. This work has now been started and we are hoping to bring it to its fruition by February of next year. What remains will be an audit of each of our districts to ensure that these materials are getting through to our students in all grades.
These proposed changes will deal only with an expansion and strengthening of Holocaust Education. It does not directly address many of the concerns we have on antisemitism in our schools and on our campuses. It’s encouraging to see that many of our campuses are prohibiting behaviors that disrupted the educational functions and that we have begun to see that freedom of speech does not include hateful and stereotypical behaviors. These would violate school policy on many campuses. I would like to see all campuses and schools adopt such strong controls on disruptive and hateful protests.
I want to thank you again for bestowing this very honored award, but I want to warn all of us that the work on Holocaust Education and opposing antisemitism in our schools is an ongoing battle. We must continue to be diligent in our efforts to make sure that the words ‘never again’ indeed get fulfilled. L’Shana Tova to all of you!
