For more than 20 years, various communal institutions in the greater Baltimore area have been holding a conference to inform teachers, administrators, graduate students, faith leaders and more on the Holocaust.
What began as a joint venture between the Jewish Museum of Maryland and the Baltimore Jewish Council has since evolved to be hosted by Towson University’s Baltimore Hebrew Institute, the Sandra R. Berman Center for Humanity, Tolerance and Holocaust Education, and the Baltimore Jewish Council.
This August, the Holocaust Educators’ Institute returns once again, and as Baltimore Hebrew Institute Director Jill Max said, the mission may be more important now than ever.
“The more people that can be educated about the Holocaust [the better] — especially the next generation, because many studies have shown that young people are not well educated about the Holocaust, and there is a lot of Holocaust denial on the internet, and the way that people are getting information and disinformation,” she said. “It’s more important than ever that we offer this kind of educational programming, especially in the university setting.”
This year’s program takes place Aug. 5-7 at Towson’s College of Liberal Arts. It also includes an Aug. 6 trip to the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York.
The purpose of the three days of events has remained the same for two decades: help educators from all backgrounds better understand the gravity and importance of teaching about the Holocaust. Teachers from public schools, private schools, Jewish day schools, Catholic schools and universities are invited. There are museum educators, experiential educators and more, as well.
“It’s really open to anybody who has that interest, but we really target teachers who are in the classroom and are looking to improve their skills and their knowledge of Holocaust-based education,” Max said.
This year’s conference includes a trip to New York largely because the group has traveled to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., numerous times, and they wanted to switch things up. Additionally, the Museum of Jewish Heritage has a virtual exhibit educators are excited about because of its classroom applications.
Over the years, the feedback from attendees of the Holocaust Educators’ Institute has reinforced the need for the continuation of the event. Since the Baltimore Hebrew Institute — originally called Baltimore Hebrew University — became a part of Towson, the organizers have had an even larger wealth of resources at their disposal, as well.
“We have a 70,000-volume library that Baltimore Hebrew University brought over with us when we merged with Towson in 2009, and it includes 4,000 rare books and documents, many of which are related to the Holocaust … so we’ve had programs with our libraries showcasing those,” Max said.
The goal is to inform educators, but organizers also have other things in mind. Hopefully, thanks in part to their actions, there will be a growing chorus of Maryland teachers, professors and students pushing for a required Holocaust curriculum for young people in the state.
“It hasn’t happened yet, but [the group is] definitely trying to have mandated Holocaust education in our K-12 schools in Maryland,” Max said. “We’re hoping that soon, that becomes something that has legislation passed. In the meantime, there is definitely a big interest in Holocaust education in the private schools, as well as the public schools.”
Goals for the future of the conference extend beyond just an annual summer weekend. Max said hopefully, it will soon be paired with an offering for students, which can act as a sort of pipeline to further Holocaust education.
“Hopefully, when things calm down in the world of travel, we’ll be able to take a group of students to Eastern Europe and to really study the Holocaust. It would be a three-credit course, and it’s something that certainly could be a feeder and work well as a complementary piece type of program, so that is definitely a future goal,” she said.
aguckes@midatlanticmedia.com
