Teaching the Holocaust in the contemporary context demands more than just historical knowledge of the facts. It demands also psychological wisdom - acknowledging the relevance of the Holocaust to one’s contemporary context. We will mostly find our students closer to one of two extreme positions: No relevance of the Holocaust to their contemporary context and sometimes (in Israel, for example) total relevance of the Holocaust to everything that happens in their contemporary context. It is our goal to create a more complex, partial relevance approach (Bar-On et. Al., 1993; Bar-On, 1992), representing a deeper working through process and a closer look, in what ways is the Holocaust relevant to our contemporary social context, when and why? In order to reach that goal the role of the teachers has to be clarified: To what extend did they work through the past and the present to a partial relevance approach. We find in our Israeli school system teachers that prefer to reinforce the ‘vicious cycle’ between the past and the present (Bar-On & Selah, 1991), rather than help establish a more complex working through process, probably because they themselves did never go through such a process. The third aspect I would like to emphasize is the characterization of the social context. In Israeli society the victimization by violent "others" became a leitmotif in the collective identity construction of the Israeli society. Through such a construction, the role of Israelis in being aggressive and excluding the "other" was easily overlooked and undermined. More so, if we are not defined through the "others" who tried to annihilate us, who are we as a social entity? The Peace Process created a need of collective redefinition, which also created a need to redefine our relationship to the Holocaust as well as the earlier hero mythological aspects of our identity (Massada, Bar-Kochva). This leads me to the last point, the representation of the subject matter. We will reach the partial relevance and better working through of the Holocaust through not by creating fear and apprehension, but through bringing the relevant issues of the Holocaust as close as possible to where the young people are today, in their psychological internal and external dialogue around their identity.

Bar-On, D. & Selah O. (1991). "The 'vicious cycle' between current social and political attitudes and attitudes towards the Holocaust among Israeli youngsters." Psychologia, 2, 2, pp. 126-138 (in Hebrew).

Bar-On, D. (1992). "Israeli students encounter the Holocaust through a group process: 'Partial relevance' and 'working through'." International Journal of Group Tensions, 22, 2, pp. 81-118.

Bar-On, D. Hare, P, Brusten, M. & Beiner, F. (1993). "'Working through' the Holocaust? Comparing questionnaire results of German and Israeli students." Holocaust & Genocide