Newsletter
Newsletter Support JNS

US ambassador lauds Romania’s moves to foster Holocaust education

The Eastern European country intends to build a museum and now requires a high school course.

Kathleen Kavalec
Kathleen Kavalec, U.S. ambassador to Romania. Credit: U.S. Department of State Official Portrait via Wikimedia Commons.
Kathleen Kavalec
Kathleen Kavalec, U.S. ambassador to Romania. Credit: U.S. Department of State Official Portrait via Wikimedia Commons.

Kathleen Kavalec, the U.S. ambassador to Romania, talked about government initiatives to counter antisemitism during a Holocaust commemoration held this week in the capital of Bucharest as a response to the anniversary of the Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

“The Oct. 7 attack brought to the surface painful memories left by millennia of hatred and violence against the Jewish people,” she said on Wednesday. “It is our duty to protect Jewish communities around the world, and to speak out against antisemitism.”

Kavalec stated that in this context, “we are grateful for the important efforts by the Romanian government to expand Holocaust education.” She noted a mandatory high school course on the Holocaust and plans for a Museum of Roma Culture and History.

“We welcome the Romanian government’s project to establish a Museum of Jewish History and the Holocaust,” Kavalec said. “We hope the museum will quickly receive all the necessary approvals so that construction can start as soon as possible.”

“I’m happy that the University of Washington, for literally the first time ever, has made the correct decision to not have an America-hating communist spread his hatred and terrible ideology to young people at our taxpayer funded universities,” Republican state representative Travis Couture told JNS.
The cohort includes 392 new immigrants—246 men and 146 women.
World Vision was found to have provided funding to a U.S. sanctioned organization, and Israel jailed its Gaza operations manager for diverting as much as $50 million to Hamas.
Democratic state representative Roger Goodman, co-chair of the legislative Jewish caucus, told JNS that it could be a “misstep” for the public school to invite the “divisive” commentator.