Connecticut lawmakers moved closer on Monday toward requiring the state’s school districts to teach students about the Holocaust and other genocides, voicing concern about an uptick an anti-Semitic acts and an apparent lack of knowledge among many young people about such atrocities.

While the state Department of Education has made an optional course on genocide available to districts, legislators said many have not used it.

“We have not done enough to educate the young,” said Democratic Rep. Andrew Fleischmann of West Hartford, who voiced concern about recent polling that has shown a lack of awareness about the Holocaust and the six million Jewish victims. “It’s not clear why we would have districts not teaching this profoundly important subject.”

The House of Representatives voted 147-0 in favor of the bill following a somber and poignant debate. The measure previously cleared the Senate and now moves to Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s desk.

Under the legislation, local and regional school boards must include the topic in their social studies curriculum beginning with the 2018-19 school year. It is estimated the mandate could cost districts less than $5,000, but the legislation allows local school officials to use free, online resources and to accept grants and donations to cover the cost.

Last year, the General Assembly passed legislation making the commission of a hate crime a felony instead of a misdemeanor. Violence and threats based on a person’s gender also were deemed hate crimes. The state’s previous law only protected gender identity or expression, not gender.

Various hate crime-related acts have occurred in Connecticut in recent years, including a man who fired a rifle at a mosque, swastikas painted at a high school and Nazi pictures sent to a synagogue.

Alan Levin, the regional civil rights chairman of the Connecticut Anti-Defamation League, told lawmakers last year that acts of anti-Semitic crimes had increased 34 percent nationally from 2015 to 2016, while they increased 68 percent in Connecticut during the same time period.

Democratic Rep. Derek Slap of West Hartford told his colleagues about how last weekend he attended the funeral of his grandfather, a Jewish Russian immigrant. After coming to the U.S., Slap’s grandfather returned to Europe as an American soldier during World War II and helped to liberate Paris. He also served in the Battle of the Bulge. While he did not speak about his war experiences, he implored his grandson to “never forget,” Slap recalled.

“This bill helps to accomplish that,” Slap said.

Rabbi Philip Lazowski, the state Senate’s chaplain and a Holocaust survivor, made a rare appearance in the House following the vote.

“I thank you from the bottom of my heart,” he told the lawmakers. “It is a very important bill.”

(AP)