Local educators learn to teach the Holocaust to the AI generation
Jill Tejada of Livingston High School and Cara Tharpa and Sarah Coykendall of Kean University’s Holocaust Education & Resource Center in Union, were among 23 middle and high school educators and Holocaust center staff from eight states who participated in the 2026 advanced seminar from the West Orange-based Jewish Foundation for the Righteous 2026 Advanced Seminar.
The academic program, on January 17 and 18 in New Jersey, focused on strengthening Holocaust education and addressing both historical and contemporary antisemitism. It emphasized the opportunities and challenges Artificial Intelligence presents to Holocaust education and research and focused on how the field is likely to change, and what challenges it might face.
The advanced seminar is an intensive graduate-level program in which a select group of educators who already are well versed in Holocaust history are given the opportunity to study more focused topics relating to the Holocaust and antisemitism from world-renowned lecturers.
Speakers included Professors Andy Pearce of University College London, Avinoam Patt of New York University, Noah Shenker of Colgate University, and Paul Salmons, a renowned Holocaust historian and exhibition curator.
The program is open to JFR Alfred Lerner Fellows and to middle and high school educators who already have attended the JFR Summer Institute for Teachers. Both programs are meant for educators who teach the Holocaust either in classrooms or through Holocaust centers, have taught for at least five years, and are at least five years from retirement.
“Each of these educators has already distinguished themselves through a strong commitment to teaching the Holocaust and to deepening their own understanding of the antisemitism that shaped it,” Stanlee Stahl, JFR executive vice president, said. “Through this intensive, graduate-level program, participants developed a more nuanced understanding of Holocaust history, testimony, pedagogy and contemporary tools and challenges for teaching about the Holocaust, strengthening their own effectiveness in the classroom and enabling them to mentor other colleagues who teach the subject.”
The JFR continues its work of providing monthly financial assistance to aged and needy Righteous Gentiles living in 10 countries. Since its founding, the JFR has provided more than $46 million to aged and needy rescuers. Its Holocaust teacher education program has become a standard for teaching the history of the Holocaust and educating teachers and students about the significance of the Righteous as moral and ethical exemplars. For information, go to www.jfr.org
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