The stark findings from the Bell Review reveal a devastating reality that should stop us all in our tracks. Schools should be places where values are formed and prejudice is challenged. Yet the scale and severity of anti-Jewish hatred the review exposes show that something has gone badly wrong in our schools and colleges.
For all its bleak and damning portrayal of the everyday experiences of Jewish children and teachers, the report makes a serious effort to confront this generational challenge. It recognises the distinctive nature of antisemitism and the importance not only of safeguarding against it, but also of treating it distinctly from other forms of racism. Its new reporting framework is a welcome, if overdue, inclusion.
A diagnosis of the root causes of antisemitism within the education sector was not included in the review’s original scope. While it is frustrating that the author was not tasked with this fundamental question, the report rightly acknowledges the need for the government to tackle poisonous rhetoric and inappropriate school-based activities relating to Israel.
It is shocking that antisemitism has become so normalised that it can take root in the very places where we expect prejudice to be rejected.
Ultimately, this threat cannot be answered by schools alone. Schools are not sealed off from the society around them, and children absorb what they see and hear. Conspiracy theories and misinformation proliferate online, while the distinction between the actions of Israel and Jewish people here in Britain has too often been erased. This is dangerously compounded by the obsessive focus on Israel and the ever-hardening rhetoric of many parliamentarians and commentators. The spurious, unfounded and legally illiterate charge of genocide against Israel achieves one thing only: it puts a target on the back of every Jew. When anger about Israel becomes hostility towards Jews, the nearest Jewish person can be made to answer for it – a classmate, a teacher or pupils at the Jewish school down the road.
Education remains one of our greatest opportunities to break that cycle. Young people are not born understanding the ancient conspiracies and prejudices that underpin antisemitism. We must equip the next generation to recognise anti-Jewish hatred rather than absorb it. In that effort, the Holocaust Educational Trust will continue to play its invaluable role.
There are those who argue that Holocaust education has failed because it has taught young people to care only about Jews murdered in the 20th century, rather than Jews living today. I disagree.
Those of us working in Holocaust education have never claimed that it is a panacea for antisemitism. There is no cure for a hatred that has mutated and endured for centuries. That does not mean we do not try to lessen its evil.
I have stood beside thousands of young people at Auschwitz-Birkenau as they hear directly from a Holocaust survivor and learn about Jewish life before the Holocaust and the lives rebuilt afterwards. The message is clear: the Holocaust did not begin with the gas chambers, and antisemitism did not disappear when they were murdered. Young people should not encounter Jews only through the prism of Auschwitz, antisemitism or conflict in the Middle East; they must understand Jewish life in all its richness too. This is education done right. Sir David Bell has produced an important review, informed by his expertise and authority, and the government has said it will take its findings seriously. The test now is in its implementation. It cannot be another worthy review which sits on a shelf gathering dust. This is why I am pleased to hear there will be an implementation working group and a 12-month review to ensure progress.
Schools will need urgent training, resources and support, and the recommendations must result in lasting change. Make no mistake, however: we are at the beginning of a long and difficult road, and the consequences of failing this test will be felt far beyond the Jewish community.
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