Amid rising reports of anti-semitism, Holocaust scholars say it's more important now than ever for educators to teach Holocaust history.

A majority of U.S. states don't have laws requiring public school students to learn about the Holocaust.

Here in New Jersey, districts aren't required to follow a specific curriculum but the Holocaust is required to be taught in some form under a Holocaust genocide mandate bill signed into law in 1994.

Ted Goldberg went to visit the West Orange based Jewish Foundation for the Righteous that is holding a summer seminar geared towards educating the educators on how to teach the Holocaust in their classrooms across the country.

Some of New Jersey's teachers say students have a ways to go in learning about the Holocaust, their knowledge about the Holocaust is superficial.

They don't really understand the nuances of the Holocaust.

They don't understand what led up to the Holocaust.

How it was able to happen.

They have the basics, they have the history, but it's sort of like the timeline, but they don't have the stories.

So the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous is now teaching teachers how to teach the Holocaust.

They brought in scholars and are nuancing their talking points, like explaining how people rescued Jews and how atypical their stories were during the war.

Christians who helped Jews and Muslims, if it was learned that they helped the Jew in any way they were killed.

There were men and women who said, Not on my watch, but they were the precious few.

28 teachers came from nine states learning lessons from lectures and sometimes each other.

There were a number of stories that I. I had no knowledge of, like the.

The medical.

We had a doctor come in and talk to us about the medical experiments and the sterilization programs that they had for the disabled and things like that.

That was fascinating.

The deeper dive we're taking here is really educating me and giving me sources that I can implement in my current curriculum to expand and go deeper into the information or the questions that students have had in the past.

I'm getting not only just the visual aids or new things I can add in, but also strategies that other teachers we use as well.

We're also meeting with language arts teachers as well.

And one language arts teacher suggested that we keep in touch and kind of do a cross country because there are so many valuable tools.

I opened a center in our high school this past year, which is kind of daunting.

So I'm gathering as much information as I can to continue to make that center come to life.

These teachers hope that better instruction about the Holocaust will make their students more understanding of the Jewish faith and less likely to be anti-Semitic.

As anti-Semitic incidents have become more common.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, anti-Semitic incidents went up 36% nationwide last year and 10% in New Jersey.

Earlier this month, a Manchester man was arrested for Spray-painting swastikas on people's homes.

And in January, a man threw a Molotov cocktail at Temple Ner Tamid in Bloomfield.

Even within my own school district, I've noticed that students who have taken the Holocaust and genocide studies elective they're more likely to stand up in situations where they see or hear prejudice or discrimination.

I just want my students to take with them that you don't have to be whoever somebody else tells you to be.

You can make your decisions for yourself, and hopefully you will choose to help and not hate if somebody says something anti-Semitic, I tell the kids, I well ask them, what do they mean by that?

Because when you throw it back at them, they have to justify what they're talking about.

We need our teachers and we need our administrators to model what it means to be a good citizen or a good friend or a good role model.

New Jersey has required Holocaust education in public schools since 1994.

Now they're one of 18 states taking this new approach, hoping to spread tolerance nationwide.

In Elizabeth I'm Ted Goldberg, NJ Spotlight News.