Make the Holocaust Memorial Council great again: Making changes to fight antisemitism - opinion

The tragic murders of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim in Washington and the attempted murder of Jewish senior citizens in Boulder, Colorado, were a painful reminder that the lessons of the Holocaust have not been learned.

The Holocaust occurred in European countries where ordinary citizens cooperated or remained indifferent to the mass murder of their neighbors. After decades of crying out “never again,” antisemitism in the US has hit a frightening new peak.

Just in case the message about the need to halt antisemitism in the US did not hit home, one victim of the Boulder attack was 88-year-old Hungarian-born Holocaust survivor Barbara Steinmetz.

Thankfully, America has the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum to lead the efforts to educate the masses about the dangers of antisemitism.

But in its current form, is the museum really fulfilling that important role? As a proud member of the US Holocaust Memorial Council, I shudder to say that the answer is, unfortunately, no.

I must lament the weak connection between the museum and the Jewish people, which could get even worse if budgeted allocations are not changed immediately. The museum was designed when it was thought that antisemitism was a thing of the past, and it has moved on to combating other types of hate.

The museum already provides no context of Jewish history before 1930 or after 1945. A planned $150 million renovation of the main exhibit hall could make the museum even more woke and disconnected, a liberal monument to the dangers of immigration enforcement and conservative politics.

How the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum can change

More importantly, the museum needs to teach its visitors about the story of Jewish survival. It needs to present the facts about the founding of Israel in 1948, the wars of that year and 1967, and, yes, the massacre of October 7, 2023.

It needs to educate its visitors about the pogroms that led to the creation of the Zionist movement, and it needs to paint the US in the most positive light, highlighting the opportunities that America has offered to survivors and their families to this day.

IT HAS been 20 months since more Jews were murdered in one day than at any time since the Holocaust. Every day since, the giant elephant in the room has been missing from the museum.

Its educational approach must be changed. The museum has no shortage of visitors and reaches thousands of teachers. But they are taught about hate, in general, and not given enough practical information on antisemitism to enable the Holocaust to become more relatable to them. There has not been enough of an emphasis on preventing antisemitism in America, including where the problem is raging: universities.

The museum’s message must be much more direct, as Trump’s messages are. Being indirect by talking more generally about “hate” has been incredibly ineffective.

Harvard-Harris polling has asked Americans of all ages monthly if they are more pro-Israel or pro-Hamas since October 7, 2023.

April 2025 was the first month that a majority of 18-24-year-olds said they preferred Hamas over Israel – 51-49%. Such polls indicate that a different approach is required from the Holocaust Memorial Council.

The amount of antisemitism that exists came as a total surprise to the operators of the museum. Unfortunately, there is no metric to demonstrate that the museum has done anything to quell the disturbing rise of antisemitism in America or prove that the museum changes its visitors’ views about Jews. All indications point to the museum failing in that regard.

Happily, help is on the way. The museum now has a new board. Of course, the Democrats are upset.

“Choosing this day to remove public servants from the board shows again a troubling lack of awareness of history,” the leftist organization said. “This is a day to honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice for Israel’s sovereignty.”

The now-fired Biden appointees included his former chief of staff, Ron Klain; former vice president Kamala Harris’s husband, Doug Emhoff; former labor secretary Tom Perez; Barack Obama’s national security advisor, Susan Rice; Biden’s former deputy national security advisor, Jon Finer; and Anthony Bernal, a former senior adviser to first lady Jill Biden, none of whom, in this writer’s opinion, belonged on the council to begin with.

ARE WE to believe that Susan Rice, who pressured Israel to make dangerous territorial security concessions, was a great champion of Israeli sovereignty? Rice was similarly responsible for politicizing the Biden National Strategy to Combat Antisemitism by nodding to alternative definitions of antisemitism that exclude anti-Zionism and by including Islamophobia, both completely out of step with the mainstream Jewish community.

Finer called members of the Israeli government “abhorrent” and said, “I do not have any confidence in this current government of Israel” in 2024 remarks to Arab leaders in Dearborn, Michigan. How did firing him detract from the Remembrance Day commemoration?

Bernal is under investigation by a US House committee over the potential misuse of the Biden autopen that ironically may have been used in his own appointment to the council.

Replacing these individuals with other, more qualified people some months later obviously does no disservice to the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust or any descendant or survivor.

Still, Emhoff decided against leaving the council gracefully, telling the Associated Press that his firing “dishonors the memory of six million Jews murdered by Nazis that this museum was created to preserve.”

Actually, Emhoff’s wife’s administration brought in its own people when it fired the chairman of the United States Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad and other key commission officials. Biden cleaned house on the boards of the military service academies as well; Democratic senators, presumably, didn’t think that dishonored America’s fallen heroes.

The US Holocaust Memorial Museum was indeed created not for politics but to preserve the memory of the Shoah and consequently shield future generations from violent antisemitism, a critical role that should never be curtailed.

If the members of the council who were dismissed did not realize that the modern enemies of the Jewish people, including Iran and Hamas, must be discussed at the museum, perhaps they were not so fit to begin with.

The new members of the council appointed by President Donald Trump will bring their expertise from their careers, as well as their skills and their important values.

The museum in DC and its Baltimore site require greater oversight by the council, and input from the Trump administration is necessary to have a positive impact on its future.

It is time to rethink the museum and what it is supposed to do in order to combat antisemitism in America and make the US Holocaust Memorial Museum great again.

The writer currently serves as a member of the US Holocaust Memorial Council, appointed by President Donald Trump five years ago. The views expressed here are his own. Contact him at Martinoliner@gmail.com.