Growing Up Jewish in a Christian World

Posted by Facing History and Ourselves on July 8, 2021

As acts of antisemitic violence have become more visible in the news in recent years in the United States, many non-Jewish people have begun to apprehend the extent of violence that continues to befall members of this community. Amid this awareness, we often hear less about the way that non-physical forms of violenceincluding words, symbols, and narratives that advance antisemitic hateare equally insidious and have a particularly corrosive impact on young Jewish people’s experiences, self-concepts, and sense of possibility.

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Topics: Antisemitism, Religious Tolerance, Jewish Education Program, Religion

It Takes a Village: The Success of Brown v. Board

Posted by Kaitlin Smith on June 3, 2019

The recent 65th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Educationthe landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision that overturned the policy of state-sanctioned segregation in public schoolsraised a number of vexing questions for those concerned with educational equity today. As a decades-old quagmire of competing interests sustains school segregation in many parts of the country, this anniversary reminds us that we must have all hands on deck in the continuing fight for educational equity.

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Topics: Civil Rights Movement, Democracy, Race and Membership, Jewish Education Program

Ariel Burger on the Task of the Educator During Yom HaShoah and Beyond

Posted by Kaitlin Smith on May 2, 2019

In a recent interview, I spoke with acclaimed writer, educator, rabbi, and scholar Ariel Burger about the task of the educator on Yom HaShoah—Holocaust Remembrance Day—and every day. A devoted protégé and friend of Elie Wiesel, Burger is the author of Witness: Lessons from Elie Wiesel’s Classroom.

KS: In your bio, you note that a major personal transformation that you underwent in your young adulthood has had a defining impact on your work and that this moment was meeting Professor Elie Wiesel. What did that meeting and relationship teach you?

AB: I think there are things we all go through at certain ages and for many of us, during our teenage years, we start asking very important and fundamental questions about who we are, what’s our role in the world, how can we make a difference, and also why does the world not make any sense, morally, ethically. Our deepest intuitions about the world don’t match up with the reality of how people treat one another.

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Topics: Holocaust, Holocaust Education, Jewish Education Program, international holocaust remembrance day

Four Ways to Use Testimony in the Classroom for Holocaust Remembrance Day

Posted by Hepzibah Alon on April 28, 2016

 

On Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, it is our job as teachers to ensure that the memory of the Holocaust is not forgotten. It is our hope, as a society, that the preservation of these memories will  prevent these events from happening again, any place in the world, and that the words of the survivors will ring out as alarm bells today.

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Topics: Teaching Strategies, Holocaust, Survivor Testimony, Holocaust Education, Jewish Education Program, IWitness, Salvaged Pages

Inspiring Student Voices Reflect on an Interfaith Exchange

Posted by Julia Rappaport on June 11, 2015

This week, Facing History's Learn + Teach + Share blog featured a series of blog posts from the students and teachers involved in an exchange between two Los Angeles middle schools: Sinai Akiba Academy, a Jewish day school, and New Horizon School, a Muslim day school. 

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Topics: Classrooms, Student Voices, Students, Religious Tolerance, Teachers, Los Angeles, Jewish Education Program

At Facing History and Ourselves, we value conversation—in classrooms, in our professional development for educators, and online. When you comment on Facing Today, you're engaging with our worldwide community of learners, so please take care that your contributions are constructive, civil, and advance the conversation.

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Welcome to Facing Today, a Facing History blog. Facing History and Ourselves combats racism and antisemitism by using history to teach tolerance in classrooms around the globe.

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