Sarah Hurwitz and liberal Zionism’s hail mary
Sarah Hurwitz speaking in May 2017
Alison Glick writes in Mondoweiss on 25 November 25, 2025
Sarah Hurwitz’s now-viral appearance at the Jewish Federations of North America General Assembly last week is a gift to anti-Zionist and Palestine solidarity activists. The former speechwriter for Barack and Michelle Obama unwittingly does more in ten minutes to demonstrate the desperation and moral depravity of those who have spent the last two years attempting to stifle pro-Palestine sentiment and justify genocide than many have done in hours of speechifying.
Thanks to the social media bogeyman she identifies early in her comments, millions have listened, aghast, as she bemoans TikTok “smashing our young people’s brains all day long with video of carnage in Gaza. And this is why many of us can’t have a sane conversation with younger Jews, because anything we try to say to them they’re hearing through this wall of carnage.”
The “it’s TikTok’s fault” complaint is nothing new, of course. But her pivot to blaming Holocaust education for young Jews empathizing with Palestinians and increasingly abandoning support for Israel was an unexpected twist. Yes, you read that right. Holocaust education did us wrong. Granted, there is much to criticize about how mainstream Holocaust instruction is conducted. But Hurwitz is not joining those prominent Holocaust scholars who critique the kind of “postmemory” Holocaust education that insists on Jewish victimhood in perpetuity and weaponizes it to wage war on Palestinians and others. In Sarah’s view:
And you know I think unfortunately, the very smart bet that we made on Holocaust education to serve as antisemitism education in this new media environment, I think that is beginning to break down a little bit because, you know, Holocaust education is absolutely essential, but I think it may be confusing some of our young people about antisemitism. Because they learn about big, strong Nazis hurting weak, emaciated Jews, and they think oh, antisemitism is like anti-black racism, right? Powerful white people against powerless black people. So, when on TikTok all day long, they see powerful Israelis hurting weak, skinny Palestinians, it’s not surprising that they think, Oh, I know the lesson of the Holocaust is you fight Israel. You fight the big powerful people hurting the weak people.
So, the lesson of the Holocaust we’re supposed to learn is: Never again for us, but for Palestinians, never say never. And never be confused into empathizing with them, regardless of what you see on social media.