It is extraordinary when worlds collide. On a recent journey to Israel, my family and I had the profound opportunity to experience Yad Vashem through an entirely new lens. Alongside my mentor and dear friend, Lynne Feldman—Director of Operations and Holocaust...
A good conference sends you home with new ideas about your work. A remarkable one can send you home with a new understanding of your own place in the work. I recently attended the NewCAJE conference in Boston. I had been to two of these conferences in the past but...
It is stunning when you hear antisemitism casually tumble from someone’s mouth. During a recent social visit, I heard an otherwise kind person remark that “they” controlled the banking industry. I paused, for I instantly caught his meaning. This was not the first time...
There was no shortage of commitment to Holocaust education at this summer’s NewCAJE conference. At least seven sessions focused on the Shoah, including two from Teach the Shoah (TTS). Participants could even earn a Holocaust Certificate. What struck me, though, was...
Sometimes an experience gives you a lot more than you expect. That was the case when I recently attended NewCAJE, an annual conference for Jewish educators. I was not there as a Teach the Shoah (TTS) teller but rather attended because of my job as a temple educator. I...
I have heard many positive things said by participants after a storytelling presentation. Some of the most memorable comments, however, have come from high school students. At a recent program at a public high school near my home in the Dallas area, we not only shared...
This week I told my father's story to several classes of tenth graders at a local high school. My father, his parents, and his younger sister left Germany in 1933 to move to Czechoslovakia only to be living under Nazi rule once again in 1939. Through luck, courage,...
When I initially decided to pursue a fellowship through Teach the Shoah, I did so with the intention of learning more about public history. I felt understanding history’s utility outside of academia would benefit me. I did not expect to learn anything new about myself...
In December of 2025, after many months of resisting, my mother quietly passed away as I held her. Gone after 98 resilient and powerful years. I retired in August 2020, when she was 93, as she needed more care and support. I saw she was fading, and I knew that her...
There is something unexpected about the community that forms in a bomb shelter, about the stories that are told, the stories that are requested, and the conversations that ensue. Saturday morning Sirens: war has started. We sit in the shelter. Everyone looks very...