Over 70 Years Later, Yeshiva Community Continues Strong Efforts In Holocaust Education

With the surviving generation slowly aging, the challenge to educate the public about the Holocaust grows day by day. The call to our community to respond, to increase the proliferation of Holocaust education and exist as a living memorial to our brothers and sisters whom the Nazis murdered, is stronger than ever. Yet the members of the Yeshiva community – from graduate school professors to undergraduate students – have answered this call. These are their stories: 

 

“And to them will I give…”

Though educational programming, from in-classroom visits to museums scattered around the world in major cities, flourishes and continues to inform the public, two professors at the Azrieli School of Education saw potential for more.

 

“Holocaust education continues at an uneven pace,” noted Dr. Jeffrey Glanz. “Some schools address the topic briefly and superficially; others ignore the subject altogether; and still others, admittedly, teach the subject accurately and comprehensively. Most schools, however, distort its teaching.”

 

From this realization spawned PRISM: An Interdisciplinary Journal for Holocaust Educators, a new journal from the Azrieli School of Education dedicated to discussing and improving Holocaust education.

 

The journal aims to inform educators and to improve the quality of how the Holocaust is taught. “Our purpose is to provide educators and anyone concerned with promoting Holocaust education with a teacher-friendly, useful, engaging, comprehensive, and ongoing publication that disseminates ideas for and about the study of the Holocaust coherently and practically,” said Dr. Glanz.

 

PRISM’s first issue discusses trauma experienced by children during the Holocaust, as well as the impact of teaching the Holocaust on individuals today. The next issue, planned for this coming spring, will cover the topic of bystanders. Current plans call for two issues each year, one corresponding to Kristallnacht and the second to Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Memorial Day).

 

Editing the journal are Drs. Jeffrey Glanz and Karen Shawn. Dr. Glanz, the Raine and Stanley Silverstein Chair of Professional Ethics and Values, and Professor of Jewish Education in the Azrieli Graduate School, has published extensive writings about Holocaust education prior to starting the journal.

 

Dr. Shaw, Visiting Associate Professor of Holocaust education at Azrieli, has also published much in the field of Holocaust education. Among her experiences is working for ten years at Yad VaShem’s Summer Institute for Educators from Abroad, as well as authoring The End of Innocence: Anne Frank and the Holocaust.

 

Reflecting on the need for the journal, Dr. Glanz observed that, “As educators, first and foremost, we have seen the topic taught well and taught terribly. Although several outstanding books and many educational resources are available, we feel that an interdisciplinary journal devoted to offering substantive and specific tools to help to promote excellence in Holocaust education is imperative.”

 

“…in my house and within my walls…”

 

Yet Holocaust education at Yeshiva does not end in the academic halls of the graduate school for education, or in Professor Joshua Zimmerman’s popular Yeshiva College course titled “The Holocaust.”

 

Avi Rosenbaum (YC ’10) is not like other pre-med students at Yeshiva. While managing long organic chemistry labs and preparing for the MCAT, Mr. Rosenbaum dedicated much of his time towards educating public school students about the Holocaust as a participant in the Lipper Internship.

 

“I had always been interested in the Holocaust and Holocaust education,” said Mr. Rosenbaum, who, prior to his Lipper Internship had worked at the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, named for the famed gentile who saved thousands of Jews during the Holocaust. “When I saw the Lipper Internship opportunity – through a ystud email, actually - which combined Holocaust research and education in public schools, it sounded amazing. I said to myself, why not?”

 

The internship, run through the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City, selects college students from everywhere in the country to participate in the program. After intense training, interns deliver in-class presentations about the Holocaust to public school students. The next week, the students travel to the museum in lower Manhattan to attend a tour lead by the intern titled “Meeting Hate with Humanity.” Interns travel back to the school the next week to finish with a post-museum-visit wrap, where they facilitate a discussion, concretizing the lessons and information learned, and answering questions.

            Mr. Rosenbaum noted his family’s connection to the Holocaust as what sparked his involvement with Holocaust education. “My paternal grandparents are both Holocaust survivors – my grandmother hid in forest, and my grandfather’s entire family was killed except for him,” Mr. Rosenbaum explained. “I think it’s really important, especially for someone whose family survived from the Holocaust, to pass this on to others and to spread it to other communities as well.”

 

Asked if he would suggest other Yeshiva students participate in the internship, Mr. Rosenbaum noted the time commitment, but concluded that he would “definitely recommend” the program to fellow students.

 

“…A memorial and a name”

 

            Recognizing the need to increase Holocaust awareness among the student body and enable undergraduates to help spread awareness beyond the Wilf Campus, students formed a new club this year, the Student Holocaust Education Movement (SHEM).

Club president Simon Goldberg, noting the numerous Holocaust deniers and increased anti-Semitism, saw a need for increased Holocaust education and awareness on campus.

“A younger generation that is equipped to fight the dangers of intolerance, indifference, and hate is only one that has learned, internalized, taken to heart and put into practice the eternal lessons of human dignity and compassion that are learned from the Holocaust,” said Mr. Goldberg. “And so, the idea for the movement was born.”

            The club wasted little time promoting its message of increasing Holocaust education. On November 11, SHEM hosted its first event, an evening with noted Nazi-hunter Dr. Ephraim Zuroff, director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Israel. After an introduction from Mr. Goldberg, Dr. Zuroff addressed a packed crowd in Furst Hall. He stressed the importance of hunting Nazis and the message his work sends to both the criminals and the nations in which they live, after which he relayed true stories about his work searching for former Nazis.

            SHEM has a panel discussion on the importance of Holocaust education planned for the later in the Fall semester, as well as a potential mission to the Holocaust museum in Washington D.C. and a “powerful” Yom HaShoa commemoration.

The club, however, views itself as a potential force even off the Yeshiva University campuses. “We will seek to further our goal by fostering principled dialogue and inspiring students around the world to join our movement of building in the face of destruction. This will take shape in the form of widespread blogging, worldwide educational seminars and an enduring solidarity much consistent with our mission.” With plans to expand a student network to undergraduate campuses throughout the nation, SHEM hopes to bring its mission of Holocaust awareness and education beyond the confines of New York City.

Summarizing his club’s goal, Mr. Goldberg noted that “our mission is to carry the torch of Holocaust education and memory for generations to come.” And thankfully, he and SHEM are only a few of the many members of the Yeshiva community who work hard to ensure the Holocaust’s memory lives on.