Chief Rabbi: Politicising Holocaust Memorial Day fails Shoah victims and the children of today

Today, he said, “I am forced to ask myself whether that confidence is misplaced”.

Mirvis continued: “Holocaust Memorial Day calls not for slogans or placards, not for political declarations or campaigns. It calls for reflection, and for the courage to confront the horror of what human beings once did to each other. I

“If we allow it to become controversial, conditional or just too troublesome to sustain, we will have failed not only those who perished but our own children. We will have taught them that history can be set aside when it becomes uncomfortable, and that moral clarity is negotiable under pressure. That is a lesson no school would ever wish to impart.”

Since the onset of the Israel-Hamas war, many teachers have  “opted to follow the path of least resistance” after coming under pressure from other staff, or parents, either to bypass the event entirely or to mark the occasion only if Palestinian suffering is also highlighted, he said.

But, Mirvis stressed, Holocaust Memorial Day “is not a platform for political debate. It is not an endorsement of any government, perspective, or conflict. It is an act of human memory. To insist that it must justify itself by reference to today’s headlines is to fundamentally misunderstand it.”

In the piece, he pointed out that the UK would “never hesitate” to memorialise our fallen soldiers on Remembrance Sunday for fear that it might appear as a statement about a contemporary conflict.

Holocaust education therefore not “Jewish self-interest” but “civic education in its most urgent form”, he insisted.

“Honouring Jewish victims of genocide does not diminish compassion for any other people. On the contrary, it enlarges it, because collective memory is not a finite resource. The lesson of the Holocaust is not that Jewish suffering matters more, but that Jewish suffering matters at all. And that when Jews are dehumanised and attacked, it is a sign that our entire society is experiencing a fundamental moral malaise.”

Mirvis concluded by calling on all parents, school, community and civic leaders to “resist the temptation to step back”.

He urged the public to mark the day by organising an event or joining the national Light the Darkness campaign, whereby participants light a candle and place it by a window.

"Remember the Shoah without prejudice or qualification,” he said.

"[If] we cannot teach our children to remember the past with integrity and resolve, then we must ask ourselves what kind of future they will inherit.”