How do young Brits who display poor understanding of their own history, emerge so ‘knowledgeable’ about Jews – enough to hate them?
By David E. Kaplan
I was stunned! Why?
VE (Victory in Europe) Day falls Friday, 8 May 2026. It commemorates the end of WWII in Europe in 1945, and is marked by community commemorations and events that traditionally include a parade starting at Parliament Square around 12:00 PM and a fly-past over Buckingham Palace at 1:45 PM.
So, on the Tuesday preceding this proud national celebration of the downfall of Nazism in Europe, while watching the British news channels, I sat in disbelief as one young adult after another – the so-called Gen Z – was randomly asked in a national poll in cities across the UK the question:
“What does VE Day represent?”
Most were clueless!
While all polled were well-spoken and seemingly well “educated”, it was nevertheless a question that had most of them stumped.
Many guessed and most wrongly. One confused Gen Z Londoner claimed it was “basically the red poppy day.”
Even more telling was the way they treated the question as having little to no meaningful relevance in their lives. The sacrifice made by their grandparent’s generation hardly resonated.
Back in the studio, the two news co-anchors at GB News as well as those they had on as panelists – albeit of an older generation than those polled – sat distressed and asked themselves:
“How has our education system failed us?”
Britain’s “Greatest Generation” seemed forgotten by today’s generation.
All this follows a 2026 poll conducted by the Royal British Veterans Enterprise (RBVE) and Opinium, revealing a significant portion of younger generations unaware of what ‘VE Day’ represents. The survey foundthat:
“…two-thirds (66%) of Gen Z adults in the UK do not know that VE Day marks the end of the Second World War in Europe.”
I though as I sat and processed this ignorance, never mind 26-year-old Brits but 6-year-old Israelis know of Yom HaZicharon (Day of Remembrance) commemorating all those killed in defense of the State of Israel or were killed in acts of terror as well as Yom HaShoah, (Holocaust Remembrance Day) commemorating the murder of 6 million Jews during the Nazi Holocaust. Israelis of all ages know their history. They cannot afford the luxury of not knowing.
All this begs the question:
With a shallow understanding of their OWN history as revealed in the recent poll, how is it that Britain’s Gen Z seem to feel sufficiently informed on the history of the Middle East to take to the street with such collective aggression against the Jewish state?
Is it feasible to believe that those who are ignorant of what VE Day stands for truly understand the meaning and implications of the banners they hold up, such as “Globalize the Intifada”, “Zionism is Racism”, “Death to the IDF” and “From the River to the sea”.
Other statistics are no less disturbing. This past May, a poll conducted by ‘More in Common’ for the Jewish News found that 40% of British voters surveyed agreed that Britain would be “neither better nor worse off” if Jews left the country.
Released in the wake of a string of violent antisemitic attacks, the polling found that only 32% of those surveyed believed Britain would be “much worse off” if Jews left. This concerning metric on the state of antisemitism in the UK should come as no surprise following a March poll conducted by the Union of Jewish Students (UJS) that revealed that one in five (20%) university students in the UK would be reluctant to, or would never, share a house with a Jewish student. The survey, published on March 16, 2026, and conducted by JL Partners, surveyed 1,000 students across 170 institutions between late January and early February 2026 and painted a picture of “normalized” antisemitism on UK campuses.
The survey further revealed that nearly one in four respondents (23%) have seen behavior that targets Jewish students for their religion or ethnicity, while almost four in 10 (39%) who “witness regular Israel-Palestine protests” have seen frequent harassment of Jewish students.
In addition, close to half polled heard chants or slogans “glorifying Hamas, Hezbollah or other proscribed groups on campus” (49%) or seen justification of the October 7, 2023, massive massacre of Jews orchestrated by Hamas (47%).
With attack on Jews and their property in the UK reaching “unprecedented” levels, Prime Minister Starmer said in a televised address to the nation:
“People are scared, scared to show who they are in their community, scared to go to synagogue and practice their religion, scared to go to university as a Jew, to send their children to school as a Jew, to tell their colleagues that they are Jewish, even to use our NHS. Nobody should live like that in Britain, but Jews do.”
Is it any wonder in a survey conducted by Campaign Against Antisemitism in late 2025 found that a majority of British Jews (61%) had considered leaving the UK over the previous two years due to rising antisemitism.
As I write, news comes through of a “Stamford hill Antisemitic Incident” where a male suspect onboard a London bus threatened Jewish passengers, shouting “Shame Hitler didn’t kill you” and “You should all go in the gas chambers”, while making threats to kill Jewish children and claiming to have a knife.
As this May 8 on VE Day when millions of Britons will commemorate those who identified and stood against the forces of evil, one wonders what the people of that generation would think of today’s generation when Jews today are still not safe – not from Nazis but from residents of Britain!
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