Following a rise in antisemitic incidents and hate speech in New York City schools, the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Lower Manhattan will host free tours for eighth graders in public schools as part of a new initiative to teach students about the Holocaust.
The $2.5 million initiative will be available to both traditional public and charter schools starting this fall, according to officials. To go on a tour, schools or classes must opt in.
City Councilmember Julie Menin, who represents the Upper East Side, helped fund the effort.
“This initiative, born out of personal conviction and a deep sense of responsibility, aims to ensure that every young mind comprehends the history of the Holocaust and the dangers of antisemitism,” said Menin, whose mother and grandmother survived the Holocaust. “My hope is that through education and reflection, we can inoculate future generations against the horrors of the past.”
Menin said she first approached the museum about the field trips after the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas militants in Israel killed 1,200 people, according to the Israeli government. Israel responded with an ongoing offensive in Gaza that has now killed more than 35,000 people, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
Students on the tours will learn about the history of antisemitism, propaganda, the rise of the Nazis and World War II. Gothamist previously reported on exhibits at the museum focused on the heroics of young people who rescued Jews from deportation to concentration camps, which will also be included in the tours.
The effort comes as city schools grapple with a surge in hate speech in the months after the Oct. 7 attacks. In testimony before Congress earlier this month, New York City Schools Chancellor David Banks said schools have experienced a rise in both antisemitism and Islamophobia, and asserted that education was the best way to combat prejudice and hate.
The city’s partnership with the museum is part of that response, according to Banks.
“In the fight against antisemitism, it will take us all — schools, community organizations, cultural institutions, leaders in government and more,” he said.
A press release announcing the tours cited NYPD statistics showing 253 reported antisemitic incidents in the city from Oct. 7, 2023 to March 2024. That represented an 85% increase over the same period the previous year.
The Gray Foundation, a nonprofit cofounded by the president of investment giant Blackstone, is supporting the initiative, according to the release. The city is also working with the Museum of Jewish Heritage to develop new teacher resources on Jewish history, culture and the Holocaust.
The museum has long offered free admission for the city’s public school students. It also offered free student tours of its exhibit on Auschwitz, following the attacks on a kosher market in an Orthodox Jewish area of Jersey City in 2019 and a spate of antisemitic incidents in local schools.