Cheers from the Mile High

[Kelly Feinstein-Johnson]

Greetings! My name is Kelly Feinstein-Johnson and I hail from just outside of Denver/Boulder, Colorado. I’m looking forward to meeting everyone in person and getting to spend sometime on the lower east side. My family settled there when they immigrated in 1905 and opened a grocery on 59 Sheriff St, near East River Park.

I have a PhD in European History from UC Santa Cruz and now teach APUSH and Theater in a small public charter in Broomfield, CO. Although I grew up hearing Holocaust stories from within my community, my scholarly (and personal) relationship to the Holocaust was transformed when I took a class on gender and the Holocaust (Scripps and Pitzer Colleges). I turned to studying the Holocaust, European, and Jewish history as an undergrad (Scripps College) and as a minor field w/in my PhD. I currently teach a 3-week mini-unit about the Holocaust within my APUSH class and have been trying to get enough enrollment to teach a senior seminar “Comparative Genocide”. I am a member of Colorado Holocaust Educators and am very excited to bring my experiences from TOLI back to Colorado.

I am also the lead director and choreographer for our HS theater program. I’ve been dancing since I was 3 (tap, jazz, ballet, modern, swing) and am fortunate to be able to combine my two passions in my professional life. This year, we just finished a production of “Fiddler on the Roof”, which offered a really unique experience to tie together the history of the pogroms, US immigration, pre-Holocaust history, and current events in Ukraine.

Outside of teaching, I love hiking, running, rock climbing, and knitting. I live with my partner, Luke (optical engineer for giant ground-based telescopes), and our two kids – Kai (10-into Pokemon, Magic the Gathering and D&D), and Freya (8 – into cats, music, dragons, Legos and minecraft).

[Leslie Skantz-Hodgson]

Hi Kelly,
You (and so many others in this cohort) have a lot more experience with Holocaust education than I do. I’m starting to feel inadequate! Your proposed course in comparative genocide sounds really interesting and I’d like to hear more about it when we gather in June.
On a different note, I love swing dance! (and salsa, and tango, waltz, etc.) I took ballroom dance classes in college. Alas my husband, though wonderful in many ways, is no dancer, so I’ve become quite rusty.
Looking forward to meeting you in person,
Leslie

[Kelly Berry]

Hi Kelly! I love that you are a part of the Colorado Holocaust Educators group. I have been to Boulder and Denver to train with Todd and the Yahad group (Ewa, etc.) with HBB. I teach the HBB and IBD by Fr. Desbois in my senior Holocaust course. Todd always keeps me in the loop even though I live in St. Louis. I am curious about your senior seminar of “Comparative Genocide”. What genocides will you be featuring? We have a Voices of Human Rights course at our school that looks at Cambodia, Bosnia, and Rwanda. I look forward to chatting with you!

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