Holocaust Education in America : Politics and Pedagogy, 1982–2025

While Holocaust education is a staple of American schooling, it is rarely studied as a product of the political machine. We often focus on what happens in the classroom, yet the path to those lessons begins years earlier in state legislatures and governors' offices.

This essential volume explores the development of Holocaust education in America from the early 1980s to the present. By shifting the focus from pedagogy to politics, this anthology analyzes the rise of two crucial state instruments: Holocaust education mandates and Holocaust education commissions. With contributions both from leading scholars and from those who have served on commissions or drafted mandate legislation, this collection investigates how twenty-seven states came to require Holocaust education and how seventeen states established bodies to oversee it.

From states as disparate as Alabama and Michigan to the recent politicization of education in Florida, these case studies reveal how legislatures, departments of education, and the classroom are inextricably linked. This volume is a pathbreaking resource for scholars of Jewish studies, political scientists, and anyone interested in how our most sensitive history is institutionalized in our public schools.