Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Inc. National President Ellen Hershkin and CEO/Executive Director Janice Weinman today released the following statement on the pending introduction of the Never Again Education Act in the United States Senate:

“We are thrilled that the Never Again Education Act is moving forward with bipartisan support in the Senate. This has been Hadassah’s top legislative priority for the past year. Hadassah members have been aggressively advocating for its passage and today we are closer than ever to making comprehensive Holocaust education available to every school in America.

“This Bill is urgent. Students—and sometimes teachers and administrators, too—are painfully unaware of the Holocaust. We must address this because Holocaust education programs are important at reducing extremism, hate and bigotry against all people.

“Hadassah is grateful to the bipartisan group of senators leading on this bill and to the more than 200 Members of the House that have signed on to the Never Again Education Act.”

The House version of this Bill, H.R. 943, is sponsored by Rep. Carolyn Maloney and presently has 204 cosponsors.

In a JTA op-ed in April, Hershkin and Weinman made the case for the Bill’s passage, arguing that robust anti-hate curricula should be accessible to every school and that equipping teachers with the tools to help children understand what happened during the Holocaust to the Jewish people, to the Roma, to members of the LGBTQ community and to people with disabilities.