I’ll be traveling to one of the far north reaches of Sullivan County on Friday night for the observance of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year. Congregation Agudas Achim of Livingston Manor.

I don’t know if it’s the elevation, but sitting in a pew of this homey, traditional Eastern European-style synagogue, I always feel a bit closer to God.

For Jews around the world, this marks the year 5784.

Rabbi Fredric Pomerantz performs a nice service — and not just because he tosses in analogies using baseball and football. Although it helps.

Rabbi Pomerantz, in a very inviting way, reiterates how the High Holy Days — the 10-day period from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement — are about personal renewal. That our future in the new year depends on our behavior in the year that has passed. 

The holidays are meant to be a period of joy and reflection. A time to reach out to family and friends and think about faith and forgiveness. 

But in recent years the holidays have been a time of anti-semitic threats and violence, coupled with a fading memory of the Holocaust. 

The latest research from the Anti-Defamation League suggests a direct relationship between deficiencies in Holocaust education and heightened prejudicial, anti-semitic beliefs - with a lack of knowledge about Jews, Judaism, and the Holocaust. 

Anti-semitic incidents surged to historic levels in 2022, with a total of 3,697 incidents reported across the United States, an increase of 36 percent compared to 2021 – also a record-setting year – according to data released  by ADL.

On average, 10 incidents for each day in 2022 – the highest level of anti-semitic activity since ADL started keeping records in 1979 – following an upward trendline of hate and vitriol directed against the American Jewish community over the last five years. Despite the demonstrated benefits of school programs, only 25 states have Holocaust education mandates.

A recent survey found that almost two-thirds of Millennials and Generation Zers don’t know that 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, and almost half of these 18- to 39-year-olds can’t name a single concentration camp.

How could they not know?

It’s a question that Jews have been asking for the past 80 years.

The U.S. Millennial Holocaust Knowledge and Awareness Survey found that almost a third of respondents believed 2 million or fewer Jewish people died in the Holocaust and 48% could not name any of the 40,000 concentration camps or ghettos in Europe during the Holocaust. They couldn’t name Auschwitz.

“How much of that is based on genuine understanding of neo-Nazis principles and how much is based on ignorance is hard to tell. Either of them is very disturbing,” said Gideon Taylor in a published report. He is president of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, which commissioned the survey.

The survey of 1,000 18- to 39-year-olds in all 50 states also provided the first state-by-state breakdown of Holocaust knowledge in the U.S. In New York, which has the country’s highest Jewish population, 20% of Millennials and Gen Zers said they believed that Jews caused the Holocaust. Yeah, you read that right. They think Jews were behind the murdering of millions of Jews.  

I was reminded not long ago of a speech by German pastor Martin Niemöller who spent seven years in a Nazi concentration camp:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak out – because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.

Barry Lewis is a longtime journalist and author who lives with his wife Bonnie in the Town of Neversink. He can be reached at      barrylewisscdemocrat@gmail.com.