4. Make connections across history, rather than direct comparisons.
- Explore the history of the Jewish people’s origins in the land of Israel, and contextualize the current conflict as part of a long history of different empires and peoples asserting a claim to the region.
- People will often use language and aspects of the Holocaust and Nazism to demonstrate the seriousness of discrimination or bias-motivated violence that is taking place. Making direct comparisons to Nazism or the Holocaust is painful and potentially retraumatizing to Jewish people, especially those who are survivors of the Holocaust or their descendants. The Holocaust was not a “lesson” for the Jewish people to learn. Intergenerational and historical trauma may trigger compounded pain during this conflict.
- Explore definitions and origins of terms that are used to describe mass atrocities in history. Using terms like "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing" inaccurately in order to provoke a strong reaction can further cause harm.