Summer Seminar

Our eleven-day summer seminar is open to 25 middle school, high school, and college educators from across the United States. In 2020, the seminar will be held from June 20 – July 1. Led by Sondra Perl and Jennifer Lemberg, the seminar encourages teachers to think creatively and collaboratively about how they teach the Holocaust, genocide, and social justice. Participants become adept at dealing with difficult material and discover how writing, dialogue, and inquiry can help motivate students toward social action. Prior experience teaching the Holocaust or focusing on social injustice in the classroom is required.

Our application process is highly competitive. Applicants to the seminar in NYC should have at least five years’ classroom experience and need to be at least five years away from retirement. 

Course content includes:

• Testimony from Holocaust survivors
• Workshops by scholars and artists
• A day at the Museum of Jewish Heritage visiting the new exhibit, “Auschwitz: Not Long Ago. Not Far Away.”
• A focus on experiential learning, interactive pedagogy, and writing
• Outings to other historic sites and cultural events

Speakers at the 2020 Summer Seminar will include, among others:

• Alexandra Zapruder, author of Salvaged Pages: Young Writers’ Diaries of the Holocaust
• Irving Roth on surviving Auschwitz
• Andrea Pitzer, author of One Long Night: A Global History of the Concentration Camps
• Rabbi Greg Wall on Jewish culture and klezmer music

All participants receive a fellowship of $350, free housing at Columbia University, and round-trip airfare. Local transportation and most meals will be provided by TOLI.

Click here to view our flyer!

Read about last year’s 2019 New York Seminar here.

2020 applications are now open.

 

How do we make the Holocaust accessible to students? What’s at stake for them, for us, for the world? But equally important, what can we learn by working with one another?”

– Sondra Perl, Seminar Director