Combating Antisemitism with JewBelong
The current rise in global antisemitism is startling. How can we feel safe in a world that is increasingly hostile to Judaism? And what should we be doing about it? In this session, we will do a deep dive into a very visible response we are seeing across American cities. In an attempt to bring the danger of antisemitism to the forefront of society’s consciousness, JewBelong launched a multi-media campaign to call it out as loudly as possible. You might have seen its bright pink ads and billboards with such eye-catching language as “Does your church need armed guards? ‘Cause our synagogue does. #EndJewHate” or “Being woke and antisemitic is like being a vegan who eats veal. #EndJewHate”. How did this campaign come to be? What is its goal? And what can we be doing to help? Join JewBelong’s Co-founder Archie Gottesman to understand more deeply what JewBelong is doing to fight back against antisemitism.
Archie Gottesman is the co-founder of JewBelong.com, a groundbreaking organization and web-based platform focused on rebranding Judaism to make it more warm, relevant and welcoming for all, no matter where they are on their Jewish journey! Using slogans like: “We’re just 75 years since the gas chambers. So no, a billboard calling out Jew hate isn’t an overreaction,” on billboards in Times Square and across the country, JewBelong also focuses on ending the growing antisemitism in the US. Archie resides in New York City.
When Young People Take the First Step: Stories of Youth Coming Together Across Conflict
Join Hannah Hochkeppel, youth peacebuilding educator, to hear stories of young people coming together across lines of difference in Jerusalem and in the United States. These courageous young leaders have committed themselves to learning about one another’s lives, even in the face of seemingly impossible conflict. Learn how they build trusting relationships, navigate moments of hard dialogue, and emerge ready to take action together to build more peaceful communities.
With more than 10 years of experience in a variety of education and program development spaces, Hannah is deeply invested in the work of youth empowerment, advocacy, and peace-building. Most important to her is centering youth voices and youth leadership as an integral piece of this work.
In addition to her non-profit work, she has also previously worked in the fields of mental health counseling and religious education. She holds a B.S in Psychology from Virginia Tech, a M.A in Religion and Theology from Seattle University.
Most recently, Hannah has served as the Global Programs Director for Kids4Peace International and the United States Country Director for Seeds of Peace. Her work has focused specifically on creating interfaith and intercultural peacebuilding programs for K-12 students. She has worked with youth in the United States, along with youth globally in Western Europe, South Asia, and the Middle East (with a special focus on Israel and Palestine).
Today, more than ever, building a community of upstanders is critical in our fight against hate. Our greatest tool is education–and you are our greatest champion. Thank you. We are grateful for your generosity and partnership.
Lunch & Learn: We Are Not Strangers
Inspired by a true story, this graphic novel follows a Jewish immigrant’s efforts to help his Japanese neighbors while they are incarcerated during World War II.
When Marco Calvo arrives at the Jewish Synagogue to attend his grandfather's funeral, he is caught off guard by something very unexpected. Among his close family and friends there are some people he doesn't recognize at all. Several Japanese American families have arrived and no one is quite sure why they are here. Who are these strangers that knew his grandfather so well?
What Marco discovers leads him on a journey to explore the powerful true story of his Jewish grandfather who sided with Japanese families during the incarceration camps of WW2. Set in the multicultural Seattle Central District of the 1940s, ‘We Are Not Strangers’ explores the unique situation of Japanese and Jewish Americans living side by side in a country at war. These perspectives converge in a portrait of a community's struggle with race, responsibility and what it truly means to be an American.
Josh Tuininga is an author, artist, and designer living in North Bend, Washington. After studying fine art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, he founded an art and design agency, where he continues to work as its creative director. His work has been published in Communication Arts magazine and HOW Design magazine, and he was awarded with the Communication Arts Award for excellence in illustration. Tuininga is the author of the children’s books Why Blue? (Xist Publishing, 2014) and Dream On (Indiegogo campaign, 2019). We Are Not Strangers, which has been awarded a 4Culture Heritage Grant, is his first graphic novel.
Eva- Kristallnacht
85 years ago today, on November 9-10th, 1938, organized and violent anti-Jewish riots broke out throughout Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia. This night became known as Kristallnacht, "The Night of Broken Glass." Kristallnacht was a turning point in the Holocaust. This was the first time Nazi officials made massive arrests of Jews specifically because they were Jews.
Holocaust survivor Eva Tannenbaum Cummins, who passed away last year at the age of 100, describes her experience witnessing Berlin city streets full of broken glass.
Listen to more survivors talk about what they saw and experienced, and learn more about Kristallnacht and the escalation of the Holocaust in our Survivor Encyclopedia: https://www.holocaustcenterseattle.org/learn/encyclopedia-of-survivors-in-washington
Survivor Tribute: Pete Metzelaar
Pete Metzelaar is a Holocaust survivor and longtime member of our Speakers Bureau. Learn why he has made it his mission to share the truth and inspire change.
This video was shown at our Voices for Humanity luncheon on Monday, 10/16.
Leaving a Legacy: Speaking in Our Schools
Meet Jessica Fenton, a Legacy Speaker at the Holocaust Center for Humanity. Jessica shares her grandparents' Holocaust stories with the hopes of inspiring a new generation to stand up against hate.
This video was shown at our Voices for Humanity luncheon on Monday, 10/16.
X Troop: The Secret Jewish Commandos Who Helped Defeat the Nazis
June 1942 - Winston Churchill and his chief of staff form an unusual plan: a new commando unit made up of Jewish refugees who have escaped to Britain. The resulting volunteers are a motley group of intellectuals, artists, and athletes, most from Germany and Austria. Many have been interned as enemy aliens, and have lost their families, their homes—their whole worlds. They will stop at nothing to defeat the Nazis. Trained in counterintelligence and advanced combat, this top secret unit becomes known as X Troop. Some simply call them a suicide squad.
Drawing on extensive original research, including interviews with the last surviving members, Leah Garrett follows this unique band of brothers from Germany to England and back again, with stops at British internment camps, the beaches of Normandy, the battlefields of Italy and Holland, and the hellscape of Terezin concentration camp—the scene of one of the most dramatic, untold rescues of the war. For the first time, X Troop tells the astonishing story of these secret shock troops and their devastating blows against the Nazis. Her talk will also describe the X Troopers who emigrated to the United States and will discuss how their postwar lives in America were very different from those who remained in the UK.
Leah Garrett is the Larry A and Klara Silverstein Chair of Jewish Studies at Hunter College, City University of New York. She has published five books in Jewish studies and won and was shortlisted for numerous literary prizes. Her new book, X Troop: The Secret Jewish Commandos of World War Two, was featured on CNN, Time Magazine, the Washington Post, the Guardian, CSPAN and a range of other venues.
Antisemitism and the Politics of "Tolerance"
Russell Shorto has called Amsterdam “the world’s most liberal city,” and indeed, the Netherlands is well known for its tolerant approaches to drug enforcement, legalized sex work, and gay rights. However, recent events have brought this self-congratulatory attitude into question, especially in debates over immigration and multiculturalism.
Is tolerance as positive of an ideal as it seems on the surface? Or might a focus on tolerance reinforce the very conflicts it is intended to manage? This conversation will explore the legacies of the Holocaust for how antisemitism is approached in the Netherlands today and its complex relation to anti-Muslim racism.
Nicolaas P. Barr, PhD, teaches in Comparative History of Ideas and Jewish Studies at the University of Washington, Seattle. He leads a UW study abroad program to Amsterdam and is the Dutch-to-English translator of Tofik Dibi’s coming-out memoir Djinn. Nicolaas has appeared on The Stranger's podcast "Blabbermouth" to discuss such terms as anarchy, progressive, and neoliberal, and written on Dutch racism in The Nation and Jewish Currents. He's an editor for H-Low Countries and a trombonist in the Mexican band Banda Vagos.
Over the next few days, we will showcase some of the winners from this years Writing, Art and Film Contest. Please take a moment to watch this beautiful animated film by Ananya Unnikrishnan from Tesla STEM High School in Redmond.
Profits & Persecution: German Big Business and Nazi Crimes
Our Lunch & Learn program will feature Peter Hayes, PhD, who will share an analysis of why and how Germany’s largest corporations became deeply enmeshed in Nazi crimes. From a legal perspective, Dr. Hayes will specifically highlight the issue of justice and punishment, as only a handful of the industrialists involved in Nazi crimes ever suffered any penalty.
For legal professionals, this program will fill 1.25 Continuing Legal Education Ethics credits. To receive CLE credit through the Washington Bar Association, lawyers will need to:
register for the program
read the required materials (linked below)
watch the program and
complete a short evaluation at the end of the program.
The general public is welcome to attend this event.
Peter Hayes (Ph.D., Yale, 1982) specializes in the histories of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust and, in particular, in the conduct of the nation’s largest corporations during the Third Reich. He taught at Northwestern for thirty-six years from 1980 to 2016, served on the academic boards of multiple professional societies and Holocaust memorial sites, featured in many documentary films, and published and edited thirteen books and more than ninety articles on the Holocaust.
On this date in 1944, Nazi occupiers in Hungary began to deport the country’s Jewish population. Most of the estimated 440,000 Jews were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where the majority were murdered in gas chambers.
One of those Hungarian Jews, Noémi Ban, was separated from her family and forced to work as a slave laborer in a munitions factory. As the Allies approached the camp in 1945, Noémi escaped a death march by hiding in a forest. She shared her story with us so that the memory of the Holocaust would not be forgotten. Her son, Dr. Steve Ban, keeps his mother’s story alive as a member of our Speakers Bureau. You can hear more of her powerful testimony here: https://holocaustcenterseattle.org/noemi-ban
Curating Forgotten Victims: The Nazi Genocide of the Roma and Sinti
In this talk, Dr. Barbara Warnock will explore the process of curating The Wiener Holocaust Library’s exhibition on the genocide against the Roma and Sinti, staged 2019-2020. She will discuss the genesis of the project, its development, and some of the issues encountered, as well as showing some of the archival documents used in the exhibition and outlining its structure and themes.
Moving Mountains through the Power of HOPE and Resilience
Gabriel Bol Deng has overcome unbelievable obstacles in life. He was 10 years old when North Sudanese Murahileen militiamen led a violent attack on his village of Ariang in South Sudan in 1987. He fled into a forest, not knowing the fate of his parents or siblings.
After his escape, Gabriel embarked on a perilous four-month long journey, crossing the Nile River and miles of desert; surviving disease and devastating hunger to reach the Dimma Refugee Camp in Ethiopia. In 1988, he had a life-changing dream in which he was reminded of his parents’ charge to him as a young boy: that he could move mountains with the power of hope. This mantra continues to guide Gabriel. In 2001, Gabriel came to the United States as part of the Refugee Resettlement Program. Gabriel is one of the Sudanese orphans known as The Lost Boys of Sudan.
Recovering Women's History: Unsung Heroines of the Holocaust
Join us for a conversation with author Sarah Silberstein Swartz to discuss her recent book, Heroines, Rescuers, Rabbis, Spies: Unsung Women of the Holocaust which profiles nine ordinary women who took extraordinary measures to save lives during the Holocaust.
Sarah Silberstein Swartz, daughter of Jewish-Polish Holocaust survivors, was born in post-war Berlin, Germany. She is a writer and award-winning editor specializing in women's studies and Holocaust literature, and Research Associate at the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute at Brandeis University. She lives in Boston with her wife and cat, near her three grandsons.
We’ve partnered with ADL Pacific Northwest to support State Bill 5427, an innovative plan to create a Bias Incident and Hate Crime Hotline. If passed, victims in Washington state could use this hotline to get connected to victim advocates and find financial resources in the aftermath of a serious hate crime.
Take action now by contacting your Senator today: https://adl.salsalabs.org/hchotlinewaysandmeans/index.html
One Second of Hate: A Story of Forgiveness
Ten days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America, Rais Bhuiyan was gunned down by a white supremacist on a revenge shooting spree. Though shot in the face, Rais was fortunate to survive. Two other victims did not.
Rais ultimately forgave his attacker and eventually led an international campaign trying to save him from death row. Through this journey, his attacker learned about Rais and what he was trying to do for him. From behind bars, he renounced his hateful views and expressed deep regret for his violent actions. His final words before execution were, "One second of hate causes a lifetime of pain.”
Interrupting Privilege in the Everyday
Inequality surrounds us. It can feel overwhelming to consider how to combat such inequality in an everyday fight for justice. But there are steps that we can take to combat inequality in our lives. This presentation will provide some of the steps you can take to interrupt privilege in your everyday life.
Dr. Ralina L. Joseph is Presidential Term Professor of Communication, Founding Director of the Center for Communication, Difference, and Equity, and Associate Dean of Equity & Justice in the Graduate School at the University of Washington. Ralina is the author of three books on race and communication. She is currently writing Interrupting Privilege: Talking Race and Fighting Racism, a book of essays based on her public scholarship.
Closing the Impunity Gap: Justice for Atrocity Crimes in Africa
Join us for a presentation by Professor Babafemi Akinrinade who will discuss the different means (national and international) for bringing perpetrators to justice for atrocity crimes committed in conflict countries in Africa. As justice for victims can been elusive with suspects fleeing to other countries, trials before foreign courts, especially in Euro-American countries have proved significant. What lessons can we derive from these experiences as we seek to close the impunity gap?
Babafemi Akinrinade is Professor of Human Rights at Fairhaven College, Western Washington University, Bellingham, Washington. His teaching and research focus on international law and international human rights and mass atrocities. He is the Associate Director of the Ray Wolpow Institute for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity at Western Washington University. He is the author of Atrocity Crimes, Atrocity Laws and Justice in Africa (2021).
Today, we share some words of advice from Eva Tannenbaum Cummins. Eva was one of the survivors who dedicated countless hours to sharing her story as a member of our Speakers Bureau. She died peacefully last week at the age of 100.
Eva was born in Berlin in 1922. She was 11 when Hitler came to power in March of 1933. The Nazis’ restrictive laws excluding Jewish people from public life resulted in her father's firing from his newspaper position and her own expulsion from school in fifth grade. After she emigrated to America in 1939, Eva would go on to become a beloved wife and mother and a successful actress.
Read more about Eva’s life story in our Survivor Encyclopedia: HolocaustCenterSeattle.org/eva-tannenbaum-cummins
