September 4, 2019
Yad Vashem – Not Just a Museum
By Stanley Stone, Executive Director, American Society for Yad Vashem
This past week I spent three intensive days learning and beginning to get a sense of the vast, inspiring work that is done at Yad Vashem. When most people think of Yad Vashem, they think of a museum that honors the memory of 6 million Jewish men, women and children that perished in the Holocaust. But, Yad Vashem is much more than a museum; it is an elite research and data collection center, home to the International School for Holocaust Education, and has the world’s most extensive Holocaust library. One of Yad Vashem’s principal duties is to convey the gratitude of the State of Israel and the Jewish people to Righteous Among the Nations, non-Jews who took great risks to save Jews during the Holocaust. This project is a unique and unprecedented attempt by victims to pay tribute to people who stood by their side at a time of persecution and great tragedy. Based on the principle that each individual is responsible for his or her deeds, the program is aimed at singling out within the nations of perpetrators, collaborators and bystanders, persons who bucked the general trend and helped the persecuted Jews. Thus, when Yad Vashem was established in 1953, a mere eight years after the Shoah, paying tribute to the Righteous Among the Nations was included in the Remembrance Authority’s mission.
Yad Vashem’s International School for Holocaust Studies (ISHS), established in 1993, focuses upon – and excels in – providing quality Holocaust education to diverse audiences from Israel and across the world. In order to achieve this, the ISHS trains educators to teach the Holocaust, develops pedagogic and didactic tools to be utilized by teachers, and conducts educational workshops for youth and soldiers from Israel and abroad. The ISHS has developed a unique multi-disciplinary educational philosophy, based upon teaching the Holocaust in an age-appropriate manner. Educators are taught to bring their students ‘safely in and safely out’ of the learning environment with the provision of age and level-appropriate materials to aid the learning process.
The International School for Holocaust Studies is the only school of its kind in the world, and the staff is firmly committed to Holocaust education. They believe it is their mission to enrich the knowledge of educators from around the world as well as to provide them with pedagogical guidelines and age-appropriate tools for teaching this difficult subject matter. The interdisciplinary approach to Holocaust education – through art, music, literature, theology and drama – allows students to gain a broader understanding of what happened during this period.
Let me share with you just one example. In the International School hallway there is an exhibit that was developed by a 12-year-old student. The student came across the name of Hannah Sfron. In researching this name, the student made a remarkable discovery; she discovered that there were 17 other Hannah Sfrons that perished in the Holocaust. None were related and they each came from different communities in Europe. Realizing that each Hannah Sfron was an individual with her own unique identity, the student developed a picture to commemorate each one by selecting different fonts memorializing the 17 Hannah Sfrons, of Blessed Memory.
Another beautiful program is the Twining Program. While I was at Yad Vashem, I had the pleasure of observing a Twinning ceremony. In preparation for their B’nai Mitzvot, Rachel Altman and Ariella Weiss took this project on as they enter Jewish womanhood. It struck me that Rachel and Ariella were fulfilling a core principle in Judaism: Zachor – to remember. During the Jewish holiday of Passover, the theme and message is to remember. We are to remember that we were slaves in Egypt. To remember can take two forms. We can simply think about it, which we are obligated to do. But, Judaism is not satisfied with simply thinking about the past, it insists on an action. So each year at the Passover Seder, we reenact our freedom from slavery. Through the Twinning ceremony, these young women are learning about the individuals they have selected and then connect this milestone event in their lives with the individual whose memory they have adopted. They are insuring that we do not forget the 6 million Jewish men, women and children who perished in the Holocaust.
We are now marking 80 years since the outbreak of World War II. Once again, Jews throughout the world, including the United States, find themselves in challenging, difficult times. The American Society for Yad Vashem can be your connection to ensuring that the horrors of 80 years ago do not repeat themselves. Please reach out and help us to remember and prevent those dark days.
