For Dutch Educators, Islamophobia can be a Teaching Aid for Holocaust Studies

January 3, 2008

Author: Cnaan Liphshiz and Ruthie Pliskin

Source: Haaretz

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/940592.html

The Yad Vashem Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority this week hosts a week-long seminar for 21 teachers, the first run by the museum for Dutch educators, with one day devoted to discussions about teaching Holland's Muslim minority about the Shoah.

When teaching Holocaust studies to Dutch Muslim teenagers in Amsterdam, Mustafa Daher says he first has to defuse his pupils' own hostility toward Jews and Israel.

"If I don't capture their interest, then I have done nothing. So I use the rising Islamophobia to help them connect to the persecution of the Jews," the seasoned educator says.