By Shayna Dollinger, Pell University Fellow at the JFCS Holocaust Center Coffee is one of the oldest luxuries and strongest addictions. From Costa Rica to Tanzania and all across the globe, coffee tells stories. But what stories does coffee tell about one of the darkest periods in Jewish history? Coffee first arrived in Europe in Read More

In January 2020, I was only a month away from my Bar Mitzvah. On winter break, my family and I went to Jamestown, California in the Gold Country on the way back from a trip to the mountains and a stop to visit the Gold Rush town of Columbia. We went into an old antique Read More

Carolina Samayoa, Pell University Fellow, 2019-20   Whenever a chapter in our lives ends, we always want to look back and think about all the things we learned and accomplished. But when I think of the last eight months as a Pell University Fellow, I look forward. I look forward to the doors that have Read More

Liana Rokh, Pell University Fellow, Reflects on the JFCS Holocaust Center’s First Virtual Yom HaShoah Commemoration   Yom Hashoah 2020 was a commemoration like no other. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, our original plans of traditional in-person programming were altered. With only a week of turn-around time, the JFCS Holocaust Center was able to conduct the Read More

Each year at the JFCS Holocaust Center, students from colleges and universities throughout the Bay Area apply for the Pell and Manovill University Fellowships.  University Fellows mentor and teach high school students, conduct research, develop curriculum, work with primary source materials in the Tauber Holocaust Library and Archives, and gain first-hand experience learning from Holocaust Read More

Turning Our Gaze to What is Around Us By Michael Campos, PhD   As a JFCS Tauber Holocaust Educator Fellow with the Holocaust Center, I spent the summer immersed in Holocaust Studies at Yad Vashem, Israel’s official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. We traced the conditions that magnified antisemitism throughout Europe and learned Read More

Genocide in Darfur and the U.S. Response By Alexis Herr, PhD In the wake of the Bosnian, Cambodian, Guatemalan, and Rwandan Genocides, the common idiom “Never Again” that emerged after the Holocaust may seem like a mute battle cry. In my work empowering local survivors of the Darfur genocide to join our Survivor Speakers Bureau Read More

The Corruption and Reclaiming of the Jewish Star By Yedida Kanfer Consider the blue and gold logo of the Golden State Warriors, with the Golden Gate Bridge in its center, or the Jewish Star of David. What gives these symbols their power?  Symbols can be hateful (eg. the swastika) or inclusive (eg. the LGBTQ rainbow).  Read More

Curated by Alexis Herr Is Genocide Predictable? Researchers Say Absolutely NPR, December 20, 2018 The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and Dartmouth University created a model to predict genocide and are now putting it to use. Read Article> Son of local Rabbi Helps Genocide Orphans in Rwanda J– The Jewish News of Northern California, December 28, 2018 Read More

The Meaning of Hanukkah By Morgan Blum Schneider Hanukkah is the Hebrew word for dedication. During this year’s celebration I find myself reflecting on what dedication required and meant during the time of the Maccabees (160 BCE) and the Holocaust (1933 to 1945), and what it means to me as the director of the Holocaust Read More

Facebook and Genocide in Myanmar By Nikki Bambauer I often start my workday looking for the worst in humanity: checking for the latest news articles on the Holocaust, genocide, and atrocity. A little depressing, I know, but it’s actually one of my favorite parts of managing the JFCS Holocaust Center’s social media profiles. Facebook, Twitter, Read More

By Nikki Bambauer In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Perhaps he initiated genocide, too. But should that matter in 2018? It should, and it does. Last spring, one of the Holocaust Center’s Manovill Fellows taught her peers at Encinal High School in Alameda about indigenous genocide in California. When looking over her lesson plan, Read More

By Yedida Kanfer, PhD In 1899, Polish writer Wladyslaw Reymont wrote a book entitled The Promised Land. Its subject was the city of Lodz, the “Polish Manchester,” which boomed as a textile center of the Russian Empire in the late nineteenth century. Reymont intended the title of his book to be sardonic, a critique of Read More

Europe’s Most Persecuted Minority By Nikki Bambauer Over the past several years, I have become increasingly troubled by the widespread use of the word “gypsy” in pop culture. Among young Americans, the term is synonymous with “free spirited” and “adventurous.” A quick search of “#gypsy” on Instagram will present you with images of long haired Read More

Interacting with the Past in the Present By Yedida Kanfer, PhD My name is Yedida and I have the privilege of managing the Tauber Holocaust Library and Archives at the Holocaust Center. What is an archive? Theoretically, an archive is anything that you store, or a place where you store it. Our archive traces the Read More

Curated by Nikki Bambauer Friends separated by the Holocaust reunite in California Associated Press, April 13, 2018 Separated for 76 years, two Holocaust survivors had an emotional reunion last month in Los Angeles. Read Article > Everyone Supports Preventing Atrocity Crimes, But What Works? The Global Observatory, May 7, 2018 Since the Nuremberg Trials after the Read More

Creative Solutions to the Refugee Crisis By Alexis Herr, PhD In honor of Refugee Awareness Month, I want to discuss two innovative responses to the refugee crisis: one from 80 years ago and the other being carried out today. Both examples serve as an important reminder that when it comes to serving young refugees, determination, Read More

The Story of Gerhard Panning By Seth Eislund Seth Eislund is a senior at Stuart Hall High School in San Francisco. He has participated in both the Manovill Holocaust History Fellowship and the Next Chapter. Most recently, Seth served as an intern for Dr. Alexis Herr, Associate Director, and conducted research for the Next Generation Read More

Curated by Nikki Bambauer After Documenting Nazi Crimes, A French Priest Exposes ISIS Attacks on Yazidis NPR, March 18, 2018 Father Patrick Desbois has spent the last 15 years uncovering details about Nazi massacres in Eastern Europe. He has now turned his attention to Iraq and Syria, where he is documenting ISIS’s crimes against the Yazidi. Read More

Genocide Awareness Month, 2018 By Alexis Herr, PhD “If women, children, and old people would be murdered a hundred miles from here, wouldn’t you run to help? Then why do you stop this decision of your heart when the distance is five thousand miles instead of a hundred?” — Raphael Lemkin When people learn that I Read More

Genocide of the Rohingya Muslims By Nikki Bambauer “It was 2 AM when they came to our village. They set all our houses on fire. There was no time to grab anything. Not even food. All we could do was run.” — Rohingya Refugee, posted March 8, 2018 on Humans of New York At this Read More

The Voices of Women in the Holocaust By Morgan Blum Schneider “Respond to hate with love… it is the only thing that works” –Helen Farkas, z”l [1] Why does it continue to be important to teach young women about great women in history? As Gershon Bacon reminds us, there is a “persistent tendency to assume the Read More

If we have not learned from the past, why do we remember? By Alexis Herr, PhD Facing a crowd of nearly 2,200 people packed together at the United Nations headquarters in New York City in 2006 on the occasion of the first International Day of Commemoration of Holocaust victims, Professor Yehuda Bauer addressed the elephant Read More