School district will let students opt out of Holocaust lesson

(JTA) – A school district in suburban Virginia is drawing backlash for announcing that middle school students could opt out of a talk by a Holocaust survivor on Monday.

Critics of the school connected the announcement with widespread reports of spiking antisemitism in K-12 schools following the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war. But the school and the local Jewish Community Relations Council denied those claims, later announcing that the opt-out was specifically intended to help Jewish students.

Fairfax County Public Schools, in a populous area outside Washington, D.C. with a number of Jewish i...