02 January 2005
Thirty-four educators from 14 different countries are participating in the International Winter Seminar for Educators from Abroad, beginning today, Sunday, January 2, 2005. This is the largest Winter Seminar since its inception in 1988. Participants in this year’s seminar, titled, “Teaching About the Shoah and Antisemitism,” hail from the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Bosnia Herzegovina, Sweden, China, Croatia, Finland Estonia, Lithuania, Romania, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Australia.
The seminar, to be held at Yad Vashem’s International School for Holocaust Studies, is being sponsored by the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Asper International Holocaust Studies Program and the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. The seminar - which is being conducted in English - includes academic lectures by leading scholars and educational experts from Yad Vashem and Israeli universities. Topics under discussion include the rise of modern antisemitism; Jewish life and culture in Germany in the 19-20th centuries; Nazi racial ideology; the Holocaust and art, and the Righteous Among the Nations. Participants will have the opportunity to explore the Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names and its formal and informal educational components as well as pedagogical material prepared by the International School.
Also beginning today, a Spanish seminar for educators from Latin America opens at the International School for Holocaust Studies at Yad Vashem. Eighteen educators from Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Venezuela are participating in the seminar, “The Memory of the Shoah and the Dilemma of its Transmission.” The seminar is taking place under the auspices of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, and with the generous support of Warren and Genie Spiess, Ita Vaisman, Daniel and Irene Belozercovsky, Berl Aizenstein, and Frida Weisz.
Yad Vashem’s International School for Holocaust Studies is responsible for Holocaust education in Israel and abroad. Activities provided by the School include study seminars, teacher training programs, curricula development, overseas programming and publications. Seminars for educators are offered in over 10 different languages.
