Teaching Antisemitism, Against My Instincts

This reflection was written by Miryam, a senior Dror Israel educator who has been leading educational journeys to Poland for more than 25 years with groups from Israel and Jewish communities around the world. The piece reflects on her experience leading a group of Jewish teens from Sydney, Australia on a Jewish Roots Journey to Poland during Hanukkah, at the very moment when news of the Bondi Beach terrorist attack reached the group. Miryam wrote this reflection to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The journey was led by Miryam together with Dror Israel educators through HeChalutz, in collaboration with Meorer, Dror Israel’s educational center. Through HeChalutz and Meorer, Dror Israel educators create immersive, dialogue-based learning experiences that strengthen connections between Jewish communities worldwide and Israeli civil society. The week-long Jewish Roots Journey in Poland invites young people to encounter Jewish life in Europe, its creativity, destruction, and resistance, while engaging deeply with questions of identity, responsibility, and leadership.

Below is Miryam’s first-person account, translated from Hebrew.

Jewish teens from Sydney reading a poem written by another Jew more than 80 years ago, in the area that was once the Warsaw Ghetto.

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"I do not like teaching about antisemitism. In general, I do not want to build an identity around those who hate me, whether enemies here or elsewhere. I do not want to create a sense of siege or victimhood. I do not like speaking about a dangerous phenomenon that I still do not fully understand, despite years of engaging with the subject. I prefer to educate about the victory of the human spirit, to tell stories of resistance and revolt, of the Righteous Among the Nations, of how Holocaust survivors managed to build good lives for themselves, and of how it is possible to grow from trauma and still believe “in humanity, in the human spirit, a mighty spirit.”

Every year, Dror Israel educators guide hundreds of teens, young adults, and adults on Jewish Roots Journeys to Poland, creating meaningful encounters with Jewish history, memory, and identity.

I remember how, in 2006, when I was guiding teens and young adults from the United States on Jewish Roots trips in Poland, I would hear statements like, “This isn’t antisemitism, it’s ignorance.” That was how they explained to me and to themselves incidents in which people threw money on the floor and expected them to pick it up, “because that’s what Jews do, right? You can’t not chase after money.” When I asked them whether they would describe parallel incidents directed at African Americans in the United States as ignorance or racism, the double standard was exposed. The difficulty in understanding antisemitism as a form of racism specific to Jews is clear, but engaging with it can serve as a tool that pushes us to fight every manifestation of racism, both when it is directed at us and when it appears beside us.

Dror Israel, together with our associated youth movement Hanoar Haoved Vehalomed, leads educational journeys for Jewish, Arab, and Druze teens and young adults to explore the rich Jewish life and culture of Europe before the Holocaust, to learn about the horrors of the Holocaust, and to uncover acts of resistance by Jews and non-Jews alike.

It is clear to all of us that many people use antisemitism to justify and to silence. But for many years now I have understood that it is impossible to ignore it, and certainly pointless to deny it. Antisemitism exists. It shapes us. It shapes Jewish communities around the world and the State of Israel as well. If we do not consciously decide how to deal with what it does to us internally, in our psyche and deep within our identity, it will shape us unconsciously in ways that do not advance who we are or how we behave toward those who are not us.

On one of the journeys, we guided young adults from Greece, and by chance I overheard their educator explaining that the criticism they direct at themselves, at their Jewish community, and at the State of Israel is deeply influenced by the internalization of the antisemitism they are exposed to on a daily basis. The difficulty lies in the ability to hear and absorb criticism without being swept into self-hatred. It is hard to remain in dialogue without becoming completely closed off, or without fully adopting criticism that treats Jews and their state in a way entirely different from how other nation states are treated.

Dror Israel educators, some of whom have been guiding these journeys for more than 25 years, leave their homes and families several times a year to accompany groups to Poland on this meaningful and powerful educational journey.

Two weeks ago, I guided Australian teenagers from an extraordinary Jewish school in Sydney called Emanuel. During this trip, I had one of the most difficult conversations I have ever had on this subject of antisemitism. These were eventeen-year-olds who received the news of the attack on their own community on the first night of Hanukkah, while they were on a heritage journey across Europe.

In the middle of the Warsaw Ghetto, near the home of the Polish Jewish poet Władysław Szlengel, in temperatures close to freezing, we read his poem “Nihil Novi” (“Nothing New”). The poem describes the internal contradictions within antisemitic claims, both eighty years ago and today:

I the global crisis am

I the communist and rich man am

I am a religious man – I fight with God

The whole evil of the world

Interwoven with my heart

Szlengel goes on to explain why antisemitism continues to exist:

As I steal and cheat and murder

And hide my gold in dungeons

The world would find its meaning

If they only could remove me

Eternally, I – a barrel of dust

to feed the mob

Despite the difficult conversation, when I asked the teens from Sydney to choose the lines in the poem that they felt most connected to, they chose its ending:

And I? Alive

A sad truth? Even a shame

But I am so in spite

It is certain:

A Jew

Władysław Szlengel

And yet, unmistakably a Jew. And alive. May engaging with antisemitism in particular, and with Holocaust remembrance more broadly, give us strength. “Nevertheless,” as Yosef Haim Brenner wrote, not as optimism, but as a defiant choice to continue living, believing, and acting despite everything.

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This moment reflects a core principle of Dror Israel’s educational work. By helping young people understand how antisemitism operates, including its contradictions and distortions, we give them the tools to resist it without allowing it to define them. Our approach focuses on building positive Jewish identities on our own terms, grounded in values, agency, and responsibility.

Our hearts are with the Jewish community in Sydney and with these young participants, who, even in moments of shock and uncertainty, are already emerging as thoughtful and courageous leaders of the next generation. We are confident they will continue to strengthen their community with clarity, resilience, and pride.