56% of Israeli youth don't know who Mordechai Anielewicz, the head of the Jewish uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943, is, according to a new poll conducted by the Darkenu movement.
The poll was conducted among 300 Jewish-Israeli 15- to 18-year-olds.
The poll also found that over a quarter (28%) of Jewish-Israeli youth don't know what the Final Solution or Auschwitz is or who Janusz Korczak was.
Additionally, Darkenu asked the respondents whether Israel should accept Ukrainian refugees, with 30% saying that they are against accepting non-Jewish Ukrainian refugees.
"The findings are disturbing," said Darkenu director-general Yaya Fink. "A nation that does not know its past, its present is poor and its future is shrouded in mist. We all have a duty to remember and not to forget and it starts with the next generation of education."
"Ignorance of basic concepts by such a large number of teens indicates a failure that needs to be corrected immediately," stressed Fink.
Gaps in Holocaust education are an issue across the world.
A survey by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany in 2020 found that 48% of US Millennial and Gen Z could not name a single concentration camp or ghetto. 56% of US Millennial and Gen Z could not identify Auschwitz-Birkenau. 63% of US Millennial and Gen Z did not know six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust.
11% of US Millennial and Gen Z respondents believe Jews caused the Holocaust, according to the survey.