Backlash after former Obama speechwriter claims youth misinterpret Holocaust lessons amid Gaza war

Clips from a Jewish-American panel discussion are racing across social media and fuelling backlash this week after former Obama speechwriter Sarah Hurwitz claimed young people falsely believe the Holocaust teaches you to “fight the big, powerful people hurting the weak people".

Hurwitz was featured on a panel alongside several notable Jewish figures at this year’s Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) General Assembly in Washington, DC, over the weekend.

Fmr Obama speechwriter Sarah Hurwitz laments to Jewish Federation that people are finding content from "Al Jazeera and Nick Fuentes" on social media and seeing videos of "the carnage in Gaza."

Holocaust education has backfired in part as people see Palestinians as Jews' victims,… pic.twitter.com/YQCkjHREVP

— Chris Menahan 🇺🇸 (@infolibnews) November 18, 2025

In the viral clip, Hurwitz argues that social media has replaced traditional US media as the main source of information, giving access to global media that were once only “found in a bookstore”. In the past, she says, a young person wouldn’t easily encounter outlets like Al Jazeera or figures like Nick Fuentes, but today this content finds them. 

She continues to say that social media algorithms shaped by “billions of people worldwide who don’t really love Jews” are “smashing our young people's brains, all day long, of video of carnage in Gaza”, making it difficult for young Jews to hear anything beyond that imagery and rendering those who are pro-Israel to sound “obscene”.  

She argues that Holocaust education of the past is now “breaking down” because young people are confusing antisemitism with broader social-justice frameworks and treating it like anti-Black racism, or flattening it into a narrative of “powerful Israelis hurting weak, skinny Palestinians”. This leads them, she says, to wrongly believe that the Holocaust teaches you to “fight the big, powerful people hurting the weak people".

Additional footage from the JFNA event has gone viral, including a clip of Free Press journalist Olivia Reingold arguing that portrayals of Palestinian children affected by Israel’s starvation campaign were misleading because they had "pre-existing" conditions.

Jewish Federations applauds Olivia Reingold, a staff writer at Bari Weiss's Free Press, for her reporting revealing that some of the children Israel was starving to death and denying medical aid to in Gaza had pre-existing conditions.

(They think that makes it better.) pic.twitter.com/0bXQ5ttrcD

— Chris Menahan 🇺🇸 (@infolibnews) November 18, 2025

'How will powerful Zios be de-radicalized?'

The clip set off a wave of criticism online, where many saw it as an accurate example of the narratives US pro-Israel institutions have long used to sidestep criticism of Israeli violence.

Journalist Sana Saeed responded to the video on X, posting: "Any conversation to be had on the genocide of Palestinians must include how Jewish American leaders, communities, organizations and temples have overwhelmingly taken the position of the right to slaughter, displace, starve & eradicate Palestinians."

“This is an encapsulation of Zionist weaponisation of the Holocaust. ‘Never again’ but not when Israel commits genocide,” one social media user posted on X. 

Palestinian-American human rights lawyer Noura Erakat joined in on the criticism in a post on X: "So, we should avoid an analysis of power and state violence? Sounds like the liberal Dems."

Many also commented on the diminishing of the struggles of both Black Americans and Palestinians in Gaza. 

Craziest part of this is at 1:40 when she backhandedly argues against Holocaust education because it can lead people to sympathize with American Black people and Palestinians https://t.co/yBtZl1vxP4

— Hamid Bendaas 🇩🇿🇵🇸🇮🇷 (@HBendaas) November 18, 2025

"You can feel the dehumanization when she refers to Palestinians showing their most vulnerable moments as 'walls of carnage' instead of human beings," a Palestinian-American X user wrote. "She is surprised that the world is moved by Palestinian suffering."

Journalist Sean Padraig McCarthy echoed this critique in a post on X, arguing that Zionists are backtracking on Holocaust education because it is being applied to other groups of people and conflicts. 

"It’s an important point that Holocaust education in the US was massively ramped up post 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon in order to dampen then widespread public criticism of Israel and now Zionists are fretting that it may have made people think human rights are universal."

Journalist Aaron Mate also responded to the video on X to point out that, for Hurwitz, the "wall of carnage" from Gaza isn't the issue - young people's empathy to Palestinians is. 

"How will powerful Zios be de-radicalized?" he continued in his post. 

We're at the point where Israels supporters are now claiming that the Holocaust was not bad because it was the powerful attacking the weak. No, that would be the wrong lesson from the holocaust.

According to them it was only bad because Jews were the victims. Real sick shit https://t.co/RNH2J7z68K

— Bryce Greene (@TheGreeneBJ) November 18, 2025

Many Jewish social media users took time to condemn Hurwitz's comments, saying that they were offended by her reframing of the Holocaust. 

"'They think the lesson of the Holocaust is…you fight the big powerful people hurting the weak people'," one social wrote on X. "Yes, that’s what they taught us in Hebrew School. That 'Never Again' applies to genocides committed against all of God’s children, not just Jews. That includes Palestinians."

Another social media user argued that the "heroism of the Jews" during the Holocaust is all but non-existent to pro-Israel figures like Hurwitz.

"The heroism of the Jews that participated in legendary acts of resistance such as the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and Treblinka Uprising are completely lost to people like Hurwitz, who now demand that the victims of occupation and genocide behave as polite victims that accept their doom."