A middle school principal in the “progressive,” affluent town of Lexington, Massachusetts, is under fire — deservedly, in my view — over a missive sent to community families in which he apologized to certain students who were supposedly offended by a portion of the curriculum.
The issue arose after seventh-grade students attended a session about antisemitism, apparently in connection with their Holocaust education. Dr. Johnny Cole, the administrator in question, said the lesson pursued an “important goal,” then launched into an apology.
“Some of you felt unseen,” he wrote, lamenting that some students felt as though their “history, identity, and community” had been “left out or erased.” He acknowledged that some of these students “left the session feeling less safe, not more.”
Cole continued, “We believe you. We are sorry … we missed the mark.”
Who, pray tell, were these wounded students, allegedly made to feel “unsafe” by learning about the Holocaust and modern anti-Jewish bigotry? Usefully, Cole explicitly listed them in his hand-wringing statement: “Arab students, Lebanese students, Muslim students, Palestinian students.”
He groveled that, in the future, such lessons would be expanded to incorporate “all of our communities and all of our histories,” pledging that these newly aggrieved children would “help us shape” future programming.
Some Muslim and anti-Israel pupils and families evidently decided that learning about the deliberate and systematic annihilation of millions of Jews during World War II, and connecting that evil legacy to rampant and rising Jew hatred today, is somehow an affront to them.
This is myopic at best, if not some sort of confession. It was “erasure,” they cried. It violated their “safety.” They didn’t feel “seen.”
But the purpose of Holocaust instruction is not for them to feel seen. It’s not about Muslims, “feelings,” or anything else. It’s about a unique evil inflicted upon Jews.
If that makes people uncomfortable, triggering whataboutist protestations, such reactions only underscore the vital and urgent need for these lessons.
But by prostrating himself before them, and by “All Lives Mattering” antisemitism — a cancelable offense within progressive orthodoxy when it pertains to black lives — Cole and his colleagues are actually erasing, or at least diluting, the unique evil of the Holocaust, which was an extermination project overwhelmingly targeting Jews.
This sickening maneuver has become the “progressive” playbook, as certain grievance groups intentionally and aggressively seek to controversialize and stamp out stand-alone condemnations of antisemitism. This trajectory was well underway before the Hamas slaughter of 2023, and it has accelerated since.
Relatedly, FBI hate crime statistics released in 2025 showed that approximately 7 out of 10 religiously motivated hate crimes committed during the previous year befell Jews. It’s a group that comprises roughly 2% of the U.S. population, yet Jews were subjected to almost 70% of that year’s religious hate crimes in America.
The numbers, via the Anti-Defamation League, showed that “single-bias anti-Jewish hate crime incidents rose to 1,938 incidents” that year. How many such incidents targeted Muslims? Two hundred twenty-eight.
GUY BENSON: WALK AWAY? NO DEAL IS BETTER THAN A BAD DEAL
The lessons of history are the lessons of today, whether people want to face that or not. “Never again” means something. Something specific.
Objectors should be told to show some respect, sit silently, and try to learn. They should not be coddled and catered to.