Center Spearheads New Exchange with Israeli College
Appalachian students Kiana Linehan, Armando Valencia, Danny Collins, Liam Lentz, and Parker Duck (beginning with fifth from left) at Western Galilee College with their Israeli hosts, including Prof. Miriam Offer (sixth from right) and Holocaust Studies Director Prof. Boaz Cohen (second from right)
Under the leadership of its outgoing director Prof. Pegelow Kaplan, the Center for Judaic, Holocaust, and Peace Studies has launched a new “course exchange” that will enable Appalachian students in the JHP minor and beyond to study and work with Jewish and Arab students in Israel in virtual classrooms for years to come. Partnering with the distinguished Holocaust Studies program at Western Galilee College, an academic, cultural, socio-economic, and educational anchor for Northern Israel, this unique initiative will add a range of new Holocaust studies classes to the curriculum at Appalachian, including “Jewish Resistance in the Shoah” and “Medicine, Nazism, and the Holocaust.” In turn, Appalachian State is offering classes in Criminology and Management of interest to our Israeli partners. These English-language classes are team-taught by accomplished Israeli and American professors, limited in size (15 students from each university), and highly interactive with synchronous Zoom meetings and discussion fora. The first offerings in 2021-22 had long wait lists.
From the start, the exchange initiators also envisioned in-person meetings and in May 2022, a first group of Appalachian State students traveled to Israel to continue their course work on medicine and the Holocaust in Israeli archives such as the unmatched facilities at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem and to meet with their Israeli classmates and professors in the Galilee. The five students were supported by Center travel grants and all won fellowships from the Brenner Foundation administered by the Jewish Federation, Greensboro, NC. They will present their research findings in North Carolina later this summer. The next classes will be offered in 2023 and are open to all Appalachian students.
From the start, the exchange initiators also envisioned in-person meetings and in May 2022, a first group of Appalachian State students traveled to Israel to continue their course work on medicine and the Holocaust in Israeli archives such as the unmatched facilities at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem and to meet with their Israeli classmates and professors in the Galilee. The five students were supported by Center travel grants and all won fellowships from the Brenner Foundation administered by the Jewish Federation, Greensboro, NC. They will present their research findings in North Carolina later this summer. The next classes will be offered in 2023 and are open to all Appalachian students.