Should Holocaust programs funded by pro-Israel groups be taught in Australian schools?

Courage to Care is supported by philanthropists with links to the Israeli Defence Force

Damien Williams contributed to this story.

Source: Courage to Care

Educating schoolchildren on genocide may seem smart, even necessary given the current state of the world, particularly when such programs are offered freely to schools.

But recent experiences in Melbourne schools have left some parents “feeling like the wool was being pulled over our eyes”.

Courage to Care is a registered charity that offers Victorian schools a free “Upstander Program” to educate children on the dangers of, according to its website, “racism, antisemitism and all forms of discrimination”.

The program is “delivered in person … and feature powerful personal testimonies from Holocaust Survivor Speakers, or custodians of their stories”. Courage to Care says it has reached more than 200,000 Victorian students, and is “proudly apolitical and non-advocacy in nature, focused on education”.

But a little digging into Courage to Care, and who funds it, paints a different picture.

Don’t ask ‘inappropriate questions’

Mark* recently encountered the program when it was presented at his daughter’s Catholic school in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs.

“The night before, my daughter said that a Holocaust survivor was coming to talk to her class the next day. It seemed good for my daughter,” he told Deepcut.

His daughter told him of a question she had in mind to ask.

“I think that a good question to ask would be how they feel about the genocide going on now.” He agreed.

But when the day came, Mark’s daughter never got to ask the question.

“The next day, I went to pick up my daughter from school and I asked her, ‘How was it?’ She said it was fine, ‘but I didn’t get a chance to ask that question. I put my hand up and the teacher came over and asked me what I wanted to ask. I whispered it to her, but then she told me that it wasn’t an appropriate question. So I didn’t get to ask it’.’’

Mark was furious and arranged a meeting with the principal.

“I did some research on the program’s funders,” he said. “The first thing you see is that they are advocates for the state of Israel.”

Pro-Israel funders

Courage to Care’s Upstander Program began in the early 1990s as an initiative of the Jewish mutual aid organisation, B’nai B’rith Victoria, in conjunction with the Jewish Museum of Australia and the Jewish Holocaust Centre. Since 2015, the program has attracted sufficient support from philanthropists for it to be offered to primary and secondary schools as a free incursion. A version of the program has also been made available in workplaces since 2018.

In Victoria, Courage to Care’s principal partner is the Gandel Foundation, which is also funding a new rehabilitation centre for “war-wounded patients” including “injured [Israeli] soldiers” at Mount Scopus Hospital in Jerusalem. Despite these links with an army accused of carrying out war crimes (including the deliberate targeting of children), the Gandel Foundation enjoys the continued support of Australia’s political and cultural elite. Large public atriums, for example, in the National Museum of Australia and the National Gallery of Victoria now bear the Gandel name.

Courage to Care also receives support from two major partners, the Victorian Department of Education and the ERDI Foundation. Like the Gandel Foundation, the ERDI Foundation has a strong record of funding projects in Israel, which receive a third of its money. These include projects for the “mental health and wellbeing of former soldiers and victims of terror”.

Its remaining funds are used to finance projects in the Jewish and general community in Australia.

No further details about the recipients of ERDI funding are publicly available because its trustee – a registered charity with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) – appears to have been granted an exemption from publishing its reports on the ACNC website.

Neither the Gandel Foundation nor the ERDI Foundation responded to requests for further information.

Parents not informed of program

Another parent, whose son attends a state school in south-east Melbourne, was upset to learn that Courage to Care is supported by philanthropists with links to the Israeli Defence Force (IDF).

“This program is funded by Zionist groups and has no place teaching humanity and morality to our children,” she told Deepcut.

“On top of all of this, parents weren’t told about what the program would discuss and were only given 18 hours’ notice that it would be going ahead. One has to ask, why are our schools rushing through a program in secrecy, without parental consideration?”

Mark also pressed his daughter’s principal on how these free incursions are decided.

“I asked him, ‘Who does any due diligence first?’ He told me that the program was referred to him by a principal at another school. He added that he thought its learning outcomes aligned with the school curriculum, and that it was free and also endorsed by the Victorian Department of Education.”

Teachers who spoke to Deepcut testified to the program’s free status as something that makes it highly attractive to school principals.

‘Let’s not prioritise one group over another’

Ohad Kozminsky is a humanities teacher and community engagement director at the Jewish Council of Australia. He cautioned schools against teaching the Holocaust as an exception.

“The Holocaust should be taught as part of broader genocide education,” he told Deepcut.

“When we present the Holocaust as an exceptional genocide, we efface the suffering of the many groups who have been subjected to this crime throughout history.

“The exceptionalisation of the Holocaust also makes it much more difficult to recognise genocide when it is occurring in our time, whether that be the genocide enacted by Myanmar’s military government against the Rohingya, the genocide enacted by Israel against the people of Palestine or any other genocide,” he added.

Kozminsky called for “comprehensive genocide education” to understand the risk of genocide “so that we are able to do everything we can to prevent it”.

Mark agreed.

“I think it would be good to have a Holocaust survivor alongside, say, a Palestinian survivor, after teachers have taught the kids some facts about genocide. You know, like it’s not just a European thing. It happened in Cambodia, Rwanda, even this country,” he said.

“Let’s not prioritise one group of survivors over another,” he added.

In response to a number of detailed questions from Deepcut, the Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools stated that it would be “inappropriate to comment” while the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion was taking place. A spokesperson for the Victorian Department of Education declined to comment.

*Mark is a pseudonym as he, and the second parent, spoke to Deepcut on condition of anonymity.