The agency’s mission is to combat and confront hatred, prejudice, and indifference by educating Texans about the Holocaust and other genocides.

20 April 2024, Austin, TX, Adam Kohen – Before I share with you what Texas has done, let us take a moment to remember what Texas has said about the Holocaust. Or, more to the point, what different school districts have said around Texas.

 2021: “Just try to remember the concepts of [House Bill] 3979,” Peddy said on October 8, 2021. “And make sure that if you have a book on the Holocaust that you have one that has an opposing, that has other perspectives.”

Gina Peddy, executive director of curriculum and instruction for the Carroll Independent School District, wanted opposing opinions of the Holocaust in classrooms.

2023: A Beaumont School District removed a substitute middle school teacher who had read students portions of an illustrated adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary, which detailed her hiding from the Nazis and was published after she died in the Holocaust.

The book, which had not been approved as part of the district’s curriculum, caused the removal. Frank’s descriptions of being attracted to other girls were also cited as part of the teacher’s removal and the book being banned.

Banned Books: Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning history of the Holocaust, the comic book Maus, appears on the list, as does Ari Folman’s graphic adaptation of Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl.

Let us remember that Texas is slowly becoming a state that is slowly removing Jewish history.

Two new members will join the Texas Holocaust, Genocide and Antisemitism Advisory Commission with terms to run through 2027.

The agency’s mission is to combat and confront hatred, prejudice and indifference by educating the state’s residents about the Holocaust and other genocides in an effort to dismantle antisemitism and prevent such future atrocities.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, named Cara Mendelsohn and Adam Blum to the commission on April 16.

Mendelsohn serves as a Dallas City Council member, chairing the body’s public safety committee. Other boards and organizations she contributes to include the North Central Texas Council of Governments, the Regional Transportation Council, the Dallas Regional Mobility Coalition and Women in Municipal Government.

Blum, a life member of the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame, founded and works as a managing partner for Old Hickory Partners. He leads numerous other boards connected to the University of Texas at Austin, UT System and the American Institute’s Enterprise Club. He also served as a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.