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  • Summer 2020
    • A Word From Our Director
    • Forthcoming Center Events
    • Articles >
      • 1. Prominent Polish-Jewish Intellectual Named First Center Fellow
      • 2. Yom HaShoah Commemorations
      • 3. Center and Partners Organized Program Against Police Brutality in NC
      • 4. Research by the Center Affiliated Faculty
      • 5. Expanded Cooperation with AppTV
      • 6. Training the Next Generation of Holocaust Scholars and Educators in Washington, DC
      • 7. Center Participates in German Initiative to Fight Antisemitism and Strengthen Democracy
  • Winter 2020
    • Articles >
      • 1. Online Center Database Gives Public Access to Survivor and Scholarly Voices
      • 2. Rethinking the Summer Symposium in Times of a Pandemic
      • 3. Research by the Center Affiliated Faculty
      • 4. Center Fall Programming Goes Global during the “Zoom Age”
      • 5. Center Commemorates “Kristallnacht” Amidst Increasing Antisemitism and Attacks on Synagogues
    • A Word From Our Director
    • Forthcoming Center Events
  • Summer 2021
    • Articles >
      • 1. Workshop on German-Jewish Studies in Cooperation with Berlin’s Zentrum für Antisemitismusforschung
      • 2. Center Names Winner of the JHP Student Research Paper Prize
      • 3. Warsaw Ghetto Research by Yad Vashem Director
      • 4. Faculty Research
      • 5. Symposium To be Held as Virtual Program Open to the Public
      • 6. Peace and Genocide Education Club Honored with Student Leadership Award
    • Forthcoming Events
    • A Word From the Director
  • Winter 2021
    • Articles >
      • 1. Dr. Rosemary Horowitz z’’l: In Memoriam
      • 2. Research by the Center Affiliated Faculty and Students in Fall 2021
      • 3. Renowned VT-Based Theater Company Bread & Puppet
      • 4. Virtual International Programming from Australia to Poland and Florida Continues
    • Forthcoming Events
  • Summer 2022
    • Articles >
      • 1. Center Hosts International German-Jewish Studies Workshop ​
      • 2. Virtual Lecture Series on Medicine and the Holocaust
      • 3. Taylor Alexis Young Wins Center’s Second JHP Research Prize ​
      • 4. Research by the Center Affiliated Faculty
      • 5. Center Spearheads New Exchange with Israeli College
    • Forthcoming Events
    • A Word From the Director
  • Home
  • About
  • Summer 2020
    • A Word From Our Director
    • Forthcoming Center Events
    • Articles >
      • 1. Prominent Polish-Jewish Intellectual Named First Center Fellow
      • 2. Yom HaShoah Commemorations
      • 3. Center and Partners Organized Program Against Police Brutality in NC
      • 4. Research by the Center Affiliated Faculty
      • 5. Expanded Cooperation with AppTV
      • 6. Training the Next Generation of Holocaust Scholars and Educators in Washington, DC
      • 7. Center Participates in German Initiative to Fight Antisemitism and Strengthen Democracy
  • Winter 2020
    • Articles >
      • 1. Online Center Database Gives Public Access to Survivor and Scholarly Voices
      • 2. Rethinking the Summer Symposium in Times of a Pandemic
      • 3. Research by the Center Affiliated Faculty
      • 4. Center Fall Programming Goes Global during the “Zoom Age”
      • 5. Center Commemorates “Kristallnacht” Amidst Increasing Antisemitism and Attacks on Synagogues
    • A Word From Our Director
    • Forthcoming Center Events
  • Summer 2021
    • Articles >
      • 1. Workshop on German-Jewish Studies in Cooperation with Berlin’s Zentrum für Antisemitismusforschung
      • 2. Center Names Winner of the JHP Student Research Paper Prize
      • 3. Warsaw Ghetto Research by Yad Vashem Director
      • 4. Faculty Research
      • 5. Symposium To be Held as Virtual Program Open to the Public
      • 6. Peace and Genocide Education Club Honored with Student Leadership Award
    • Forthcoming Events
    • A Word From the Director
  • Winter 2021
    • Articles >
      • 1. Dr. Rosemary Horowitz z’’l: In Memoriam
      • 2. Research by the Center Affiliated Faculty and Students in Fall 2021
      • 3. Renowned VT-Based Theater Company Bread & Puppet
      • 4. Virtual International Programming from Australia to Poland and Florida Continues
    • Forthcoming Events
  • Summer 2022
    • Articles >
      • 1. Center Hosts International German-Jewish Studies Workshop ​
      • 2. Virtual Lecture Series on Medicine and the Holocaust
      • 3. Taylor Alexis Young Wins Center’s Second JHP Research Prize ​
      • 4. Research by the Center Affiliated Faculty
      • 5. Center Spearheads New Exchange with Israeli College
    • Forthcoming Events
    • A Word From the Director
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A Word From Our Director: Facing the COVID-19 Crisis

Picture
Center Director Dr. Pegelow Kaplan signing Muenster’s “Golden Book” in the historic town hall, where the Peace of Westphalia was concluded in 1648 that ended the Thirty Years War (left: Mayor Wendela-Beate Vilhjalmsson, behind: Prof. Dan Michman, Yad Vashem)
Like the university and the country, the Center for Judaic, Holocaust, and Peace Studies has been grappling with the massive COVID-19 crisis, always following the maxim to keep its staff, affiliated faculty, students, and the audiences of its programs safe. Like our peer institutions, we have postponed events, including our international March conference with the Zentrum für Antisemitismusforschung in Berlin and the summer symposium in July. At the same time, the Center has experimented with new on-line formats, beginning with four events in April. 
​     The ongoing global pandemic has impacted and redirected our work in many ways. The most extensive persecutions of European Jews prior to the Shoah unfolded during another pandemic. In the middle of the fourteenth century, elites of Christendom along with ordinary Christians blamed Jews for the bubonic plague and slaughtered entire communities. In the US today, enough white supremacists have held “the Jews” responsible for the coronavirus and, drawing on classic anti-Semitic tropes, construed the virus as an instrument of an alleged Jewish conspiracy for global rule. Yet, the brunt of the discrimination and violence has been directed at men and women identified as “Chinese” or “Asian” along with refugees from other parts of the Global South. 
     As the rise of antisemitism has largely disappeared from the mainstream news, many extremists continue to use the current crises to escalate their antisemitic attacks. These dynamics are observable from coast to coast. University campuses, for instance, are no longer simply short-time targets of a few traveling members of white supremacist groups. Instead, specific institutions have moved into the crosshairs of local white nationalists, who use popular podcasts to spread their hatred. These developments coincide with the growth of the “red-pill movement” that no longer simply preaches Holocaust denial, but targets any form of Holocaust remembrance and education. Like too many other places, even our Center and the Temple have come under attack.
     The Center is meeting the new challenges as it has always done by stepping up its programming and co-operations regionally, nationally and internationally. Before the lockdowns, I represented, for example, the Center at a Holocaust studies conference in Muenster, Germany, and participated in an initiative by the German Federal Agency for Civic Education to fight antisemitism. 
      The Center remains incredibly grateful to all of its supporters without whom we could not continue.
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