Robert Bandanza
February 18th, 2008, 10:04 PM
http://img516.imageshack.us/img516/6443/tadshithimmt2.jpg
Yad Vashem chairman Avner Shalev
AVNER Shalev, arguably the world’s foremost Holocaust educator, shares a “dream” with his team at Yad Vashem that he knows they will never fulfil – to post the name of every Shoah victim on the internet along with a personal profile.
But keeping that vision in mind has helped them pursue some achievable goals, he told The AJN last week during a visit to Melbourne and Sydney, hosted by the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council.
Shalev, a retired Israel Defence Forces (IDF) brigadier-general, has chaired Yad Vashem since 1993, making education a priority.
Under his leadership, Yad Vashem has built the International School for Holocaust Studies, a learning centre and a new museum complex.
As the number of eyewitnesses to the Holocaust diminishes and Holocaust deniers on the ideological right and left and in the Arab world grow bolder, Shalev has a two-pronged strategy.
He wants to accelerate Yad Vashem’s traditional role as a documentation centre and museum, while adding a dynamic educational dimension.
Online testimonies are only the beginning, he said. They need to be developed into an interactive web-based resource for young students.
Shalev called his plan the “Google approach” and said he wanted to give internet users the ability to access information as if the survivors “were still alive and side-by-side with them”.
Holocaust education employs different approaches in new-world communities, in Europe and in the Arab world – Yad Vashem last month launched an Arab-language service on its website. In Israel itself, it links today’s youth to previous generations and to Jewish life in the Diaspora.
Yad Vashem also needs to expand the web resources available to teachers, Shalev said.
At Yad Vashem’s International School of Holocaust Studies in Jerusalem, a program based on a concept of 10 lessons about the Holocaust was developed with the Steven Spielberg Shoah Foundation and the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation League.
It has been utilised by more than 7000 American teachers. Similar programs have commenced in Canada, Austria and Hungary.
In December this year and January 2009, the first group of Australian secondary-school teachers will attend a course at the International School of Holocaust Studies, using a syllabus customised to Australian education curriculum.
In recent years, several groups of Australian teachers have participated in the Jerusalem school’s curriculum through a B’nai B’rith Raoul Wallenberg Unit program.
Yad Vashem’s resources have assisted community-based Holocaust museums around the world with materials, training and touring exhibitions.
Some community museums, notably the Melbourne Holocaust Museum and Research Centre, assist Yad Vashem by sharing survivor testimonies.
Support groups, such as the Australian Friends of Yad Vashem, have provided resources for training tertiary educators and raising funds, he added.
Shalev, who was wounded in the Six-Day War, spent a long and distinguished career in the IDF. After retirement from the military, he became director-general of the Education Ministry’s Culture Authority and chaired the National Culture and Art Council.
“I first saw a new and fascinating wave of interest in the Shoah among youngsters at the end of the 1980s,” said Shalev.
His education strategy is to make Yad Vashem speak to what he calls the “third generation”.
http://www.ajn.com.au/news/news.asp?pgID=4952
Yad Vashem chairman Avner Shalev
AVNER Shalev, arguably the world’s foremost Holocaust educator, shares a “dream” with his team at Yad Vashem that he knows they will never fulfil – to post the name of every Shoah victim on the internet along with a personal profile.
But keeping that vision in mind has helped them pursue some achievable goals, he told The AJN last week during a visit to Melbourne and Sydney, hosted by the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council.
Shalev, a retired Israel Defence Forces (IDF) brigadier-general, has chaired Yad Vashem since 1993, making education a priority.
Under his leadership, Yad Vashem has built the International School for Holocaust Studies, a learning centre and a new museum complex.
As the number of eyewitnesses to the Holocaust diminishes and Holocaust deniers on the ideological right and left and in the Arab world grow bolder, Shalev has a two-pronged strategy.
He wants to accelerate Yad Vashem’s traditional role as a documentation centre and museum, while adding a dynamic educational dimension.
Online testimonies are only the beginning, he said. They need to be developed into an interactive web-based resource for young students.
Shalev called his plan the “Google approach” and said he wanted to give internet users the ability to access information as if the survivors “were still alive and side-by-side with them”.
Holocaust education employs different approaches in new-world communities, in Europe and in the Arab world – Yad Vashem last month launched an Arab-language service on its website. In Israel itself, it links today’s youth to previous generations and to Jewish life in the Diaspora.
Yad Vashem also needs to expand the web resources available to teachers, Shalev said.
At Yad Vashem’s International School of Holocaust Studies in Jerusalem, a program based on a concept of 10 lessons about the Holocaust was developed with the Steven Spielberg Shoah Foundation and the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation League.
It has been utilised by more than 7000 American teachers. Similar programs have commenced in Canada, Austria and Hungary.
In December this year and January 2009, the first group of Australian secondary-school teachers will attend a course at the International School of Holocaust Studies, using a syllabus customised to Australian education curriculum.
In recent years, several groups of Australian teachers have participated in the Jerusalem school’s curriculum through a B’nai B’rith Raoul Wallenberg Unit program.
Yad Vashem’s resources have assisted community-based Holocaust museums around the world with materials, training and touring exhibitions.
Some community museums, notably the Melbourne Holocaust Museum and Research Centre, assist Yad Vashem by sharing survivor testimonies.
Support groups, such as the Australian Friends of Yad Vashem, have provided resources for training tertiary educators and raising funds, he added.
Shalev, who was wounded in the Six-Day War, spent a long and distinguished career in the IDF. After retirement from the military, he became director-general of the Education Ministry’s Culture Authority and chaired the National Culture and Art Council.
“I first saw a new and fascinating wave of interest in the Shoah among youngsters at the end of the 1980s,” said Shalev.
His education strategy is to make Yad Vashem speak to what he calls the “third generation”.
http://www.ajn.com.au/news/news.asp?pgID=4952