One in five young Americans say that the Holocaust is a myth, according to a poll released Thursday, and around 30 percent express anti-Semitic views.
Twenty percent of Americans aged 18 to 29 agreed with the statement "the Holocaust is a myth," the Economist/YouGov poll found, while a slightly larger percentage agreed with the statement "the Holocaust has been exaggerated." Thirty percent, meanwhile, say "they do not know whether the Holocaust is a myth," and 28 percent espoused the anti-Semitic canard that "Jews wield too much power in America."
Young Americans' Holocaust denial spans "all levels of education," according to the Economist, which reported that "social media might play a role" in exacerbating anti-Semitism. A recent Generation Lab survey found that "young adults who used TikTok were more likely to hold anti-Semitic beliefs," the Economist noted.
The alarming poll numbers come as anti-Semitism erupts on elite college campuses. House Republicans in a Tuesday hearing confronted the presidents of MIT, Harvard, and the University of Pennsylvania with video of students calling for violence against Israel and chanting "Globalize the intifada" and "Long live the intifada."
Jewish students from the three universities joined Republicans to describe numerous instances of anti-Semitism. "As a student, despite what my university says, I do not feel safe," said University of Pennsylvania senior Eyal Yakoby, who recounted "a bomb threat against Hillel, a swastika spray-painted, the Hillel and Chabad houses vandalized, a professor posting an armed wing of Hamas's logo on Facebook, a Jewish student accosted, 'Jews are Nazis' etched adjacent to Penn's Jewish fraternity house."
In the face of questioning from House Republicans, all three university presidents said that calling for the genocide of Jews does not necessarily violate university codes of conduct, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
MIT, Harvard, and Penn have faced widespread pushback for those remarks, with one Penn donor pulling a $100 million gift following the hearing. The House has announced an investigation into the universities.
Columbia Law School's dean, meanwhile, resigned last month following anti-Semitic scandals on her watch.
Anti-Semitic incidents in the United States have spiked by 400 percent since Hamas's Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel, the Anti-Defamation League reported in October.
Holocaust denial decreases among Americans older than 29, the Economist/YouGov poll found. Around 10 percent of Americans aged 30 to 44 say that the Holocaust is a myth or exaggerated. Few Americans aged 45 to 64—and almost no Americans older than 65—express those views.
Anti-Semitism is also rearing its head in other demographic groups, the poll found. Twenty-seven percent of black respondents and 19 percent of Hispanics agreed with the statement that "Jews have too much power in America," compared with 13 percent of white respondents, according to the poll.