Task Force For International Cooperation On Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research

Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research in Israel

Click here for an Overview of Holocaust-related activities in Israel

22 January 2012
Cabinet Meeting of the Israeli Government to mark International Holocaust Memorial Day- including unveiling of "Keeping The Memory Alive" Poster Exhibit, organized by the Ministry of Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs.

23 January 2012
At Yad Vashem, Jerusalem

A new exhibition, "Last Portrait: Painting for Posterity" will open at Yad Vashem's Exhibitions Pavilion at 12:30 in the presence of the diplomatic corps and Holocaust survivors. The exhibition presents some 200 portraits of Jews drawn by Jewish artists during the Holocaust. The depictions were undertaken in ghettos, concentration camps, and during slave labor.

An international symposium in the presence of diplomats, historians and the general public will take place in the Yad Vashem Auditorium. The Symposium, "70 years since the Wannsee Conference: The Organization of the Mass Murder of the Jews and Its Significance" will take place in Hebrew and English with simultaneous translation. Minister of Information and Diaspora Yuli Edelstein, Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, Chairman of the Yad Vashem Council, Avner Shalev, Chairman of the Yad Vashem Directorate, HE Mr Henri Etoundi Essomba, Dean of the Diplomatic Corps in Israel, Prof. Yehuda Bauer, Academic Advisor to Yad Vashem, and Prof. Omer Bartov, of Brown University, will be among the speakers. The full program is available here >.

26 January 2012
Ceremonial evening of the "Next Generation" Association, an event at "Bet Hatfustot" (Museum of the Diaspora, Tel Aviv) in cooperation with the Israeli Ministry for Senior Citizens

January 26th - Israeli National Library- "Five Tragic Songs" - World premiere performance to mark the International Holocaust Remembrance Day
The National Library will host ac oncert to mark the International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Thursday, 26 January 2012, sponsored by the Foreign Ministry and the Embassy of Uruguay in Israel, at 8pm. The concert will feature world premiere of a new work of Uraguayan Jewish composer Leon Breoti  to texts on the Holocaust selected from the Spanish poetry of Prof Moses Liba,  the prolific writer and retired Israeli Ambassador. The works will be performed by "21st Century Ensemble", one of the leading ensembles for contemporary music , in Israel. The ensemble also will perform another work written in Theresienstadt.

27th January 2012
Ghetto Fighters House (Lohamei HaGetta'ot)

"The Young Leading The Way- Then and Now" - Commemorative Conference 9.30am-1pm

http://www.gfh.org.il/Eng/?CategoryID=39&ArticleID=59

"I Honor" Wall-  Online virtual event on Yad Vashem's Facebook page, invites people to honor the Righteous Among the Nations. https://www.facebook.com/events/334399479915909/

International Holocaust Memorial Day Diplomatic Commemoration Ceremony, at Massuah, January 27th 2012, 10am

In the presence of Robert Serry, The Hon. Dorit Benisch, MK Danny Ayalon, H.E Daniel Shapiro, and others.  Full program: http://www.massuah.org.il/english/news.aspx?ItemId=22

January 30, 2012
Yad Vashem will inaugurate the new International Seminars Wing of the International School for Holocaust Studies, generously supported by Joseph Gottdenker of Canada along with Friends of Yad Vashem worldwide, and the new Edmund J. Safra Lecture Hall, donated by the Edmond J. Safra Philanthropic Foundation.  The new wing adds 45,000 square feet of space to the International School, and provides state-of-the-art facilities, to meet the ever-expanding demand for educational seminars for teachers and public opinion-shapers from Israel and around the globe.  The inauguration event will take place with the participation of Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird, Israeli Minister of Education Gideon Sa'ar, the donors, dignitaries and educators currently participating in seminars at the International School from Taiwan and Latin America.  The event will take place at 10:30 in Hebrew with English translation and is open to the press.

New Exhibition and Research Symposium at Yad Vashem Marks 50 Years Since the Eichmann Trial - April 11, 2011

Marking 50 years since the Eichmann trial, an exhibition on the trial will open in the Yad Vashem auditorium foyer on April 11, 2011, during a special symposium commemorating the trial.  The exhibition, With Me Here Are Six Million Accusers: An Exhibition Commemorating the 50^th Anniversary of the Eichmann Trial, produced by Yad Vashem's Museums Division, focuses on visual aspects of the event, based on the unique items found in Yad Vashem's collections, the National Archive, and the National Photographic Collection: documents, photographs, newspaper clippings, artifacts and works of art. On display is original footage from the filming of the trial, and various additional media productions, to allow visitors to get a sense of the trial as it occurred in the historic Beit Ha'am.   The exhibition's chapters present Eichmann as the Nazi officer turned hangman, Eichmann the fugitive criminal hiding in Argentina, and then - the core of the exhibition - Eichmann the accused in the glass booth in Jerusalem. The design element of the exhibition stresses the "court case nature" of its chapters: the case files of Eichmann's responsibility, of the Mossad's tracking of Eichmann, of Police Unit 06, of the court case and of the trial coverage.

The last chapter of the exhibition sheds light on the impact and insights of the trial, as a result of which Israeli society and the international community were transformed with regard to their attitude towards the survivors and the Shoah.

The Symposium, "The Imprint of the Eichmann Trial: A Reassessment 50 Years Later" held by Yad Vashem's International Institute for Holocaust Research, together with Yad Ben Zvi, features renowned historians and academics, authors and researchers, judges, journalists, Holocaust survivors and prosecutors from the trial, and Adv. Tami Raveh the daughter of prosecutor Gideon Hausner, will take place on April 11, 2010 from 9:00 a.m.  The program will take place in the Yad Vashem Auditorium in Hebrew.  The Symposium will consist of four sessions devoted to different topics: historical aspects of the trial; the effect of the trial on legal thought; Holocaust survivors and their place in Israeli society; and the influence of the trial on Israeli culture. The full program (in Hebrew) can be found here.

Shoah Education in Israeli State Schools: An Educational Research 2007 - 2009, highlights submitted by Dr. Erik Cohen, Bar Ilan University School of Education  shoah_education_in _israeli_state_schools.pdf [111.10 KB]

The State of Israel's connection with the mission of the ITF is especially poignant and meaningful. Our country continues to grapple with its history and continuity in the shadow of the Shoah, and we are most firmly committed to the Stockholm Declaration (2000). The context of teaching and commemorating the Holocaust in Israel, the national home of the Jewish people in which the majority of Holocaust survivors chose to settle after the Second World War, is very different than teaching about this difficult and complex subject matter in any other country.

Education

Since 1982, a minimum of 30 hours of Holocaust studies, as part of the discipline of history, has been mandated in all state Israeli high schools by the Israeli Ministry of Education. Usually taught in the eleventh and twelfth grade, history teachers mostly devote between twenty to thirty classes on this topic, and a question related to the history of the Holocaust has become an integral part of the history matriculation exam given to high school students. Since 1999, the Holocaust has become a recommended part of the junior high school curriculum as well.

It is also important to note that the Holocaust is often taught from a variety of disciplines in schools, such as classes on literature, history, music, drama, foreign languages, art, philosophy and others. Since the Holocaust is part of Jewish history and Israeli history, and its commemoration is an integral part of the national calendar, aspects of this subject are often addressed in many different educational settings and contexts. Many Holocaust survivors are invited to relate their personal experiences to pupils, educators and soldiers.

In Israel, aspects of Holocaust awareness and commemoration are present throughout the entire year, though heightened on Yom Hashoah. Many Israeli youngsters participate in study trips to Poland regulated by the Israeli Ministry of Education. Overall, despite the passage of time, Israeli youth are very interested in learning about this subject.

Holocaust-related non-governmental organisations throughout Israel have made teacher-training a top priority. Yad Vashem, the Ghetto Fighters' House, Beit Terezin and other Holocaust-related organisations coordinate teacher-training seminars, design pedagogical tools and develop age-appropriate techniques.

Educational resources in a plethora of foreign languages, such as lesson plans, sample ceremonies, maps and guidelines, have been developed and are readily available on a number of websites of Israeli Holocaust organisations.

Remembrance

The State of Israel does not have any authentic Holocaust-related sites on its soil. However, the State of Israel has absorbed approximately 300000 Holocaust survivors, and therefore the Holocaust is an integral part of Israeli society and culture. Countless numbers of Holocaust-related memorials (non-authentic sites) have been erected throughout the country. Awareness, documentation and commemoration about the Holocaust began even before the State of Israel was established in May 1948. Although memorial ceremonies were conducted immediately after the war ended, Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day (Yom Hashoah) in Israel only became institutionalised in the 1950s. Since 2005, the State of Israel has also marked January 27th, and many events are organised by Holocaust-related organisations in conjunction with the international day of commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust.

Holocaust education and museum/memorial centers have been established across the country as well. For example, Yad Vashem, the Ghetto Fighters' House, Massua, Beit Terezin, Yad Mordechai (named in honor of Mordechai Anilewicz, a leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising), as well as many others. Yom Hashoah is a national day of commemoration in Israel. It is a solemn day, beginning at sunset on the 27th of the Jewish month of Nisan and ending the following evening, according to the traditional Jewish custom of marking a day. Places of entertainment are closed and memorial ceremonies are held throughout the country. It is important to note that there is high national media coverage of the special events that take place on this day. The central ceremonies, in the evening and the following morning, are broadcast on national television. Marking the start of the day - in the presence of the President of the State of Israel and the Prime Minister - dignitaries, survivors, children of survivors and their families, gather together with the general public to take part in the memorial ceremony at Yad Vashem.
The following morning, a two-minute siren is sounded throughout the entire country. For the duration of the siren, work is halted, people walking in the streets stop, cars pull off to the side of the road and everybody stands at silent attention in reverence to the victims of the Holocaust.

Research

Courses on various aspects of the Holocaust have been taught in all major Israeli universities by world-renowned scholars such as Professors Yehuda Bauer, Yisrael Gutman, David Bankier, Dan Michman, Daniel Blatman, Dalia Ofer, Otto Dov Kulka, Dina Porat, Saul Friedlander and others. At the Institute for Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and other Israeli universities, many graduate students have concentrated in Holocaust studies. In addition, courses on the Holocaust are also taught every semester in almost all Israeli colleges and preparatory programs for those students who seek a teaching certificate. Over the years, hundreds of Holocaust-related doctorates have been written under the direction of leading academics in their field. Moreover, academic centers such as the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem; the Arnold and Leona Finkler Institute of Holocaust Research at Bar Ilan University; The Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism; the Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism at Tel Aviv University, as well as others are publishing research reports, articles and books related to Holocaust studies every year.
The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs has established a department for combating Antisemitism and promoting Holocaust remembrance and its staff work closely with non-governmental organisations, research institutes and scholars in Israel and abroad.