ELIZABETH, New Jersey — The Jewish Foundation for the Righteous (JFR) has selected 25 middle and high school teachers, along with Holocaust center staff from 10 U.S. states and Poland, as 2025 Alfred Lerner Fellows. The participants attended a five-day Summer Institute at the Hilton Newark Airport, focusing on Holocaust history and modern antisemitism.
The seminar began with a lecture on medieval anti-Judaism and concluded with an in-depth session on contemporary antisemitism. Sessions included small-group discussions designed to deepen educators’ capacity to introduce Holocaust topics sensitively and effectively in their classrooms.
This year’s program featured prominent scholars: Sheryl Silver Ochayon of Yad Vashem; Doris Bergen of University of Toronto; Benjamin Carter Hett of CUNY; Lawrence R. Douglas of Amherst College; Steven Field of NYU Grossman School of Medicine; Rebecca Erbelding of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum; Avinoam Patt of NYU; Richards Plavnieks of Florida Southern College; Robert Jan van Pelt of University of Waterloo; Edward B. Westermann of Texas A&M; and Paul Salmons, Alexandra Zapruder, Christine E. Schmidt, and Holly Huffnagle among others.
Stanlee Stahl, JFR’s Executive Vice President, described the goals of the institute as: providing a graduate-level curriculum, fostering pedagogical collaboration, and equipping educators with enhanced classroom tools.
The diverse cohort includes educators such as Risa Dela Rocca from Florida, Nicole Kepner from New Jersey, Meg Frank from Pennsylvania, and Joanna Jedrzejczak from Poland.
The Lerner Fellowship honours Alfred Lerner, founding chairman of MBNA Corporation, whose support endowed the program after he died in 2002. The JFR continues its broader mission by providing financial aid to 73 surviving Righteous Gentiles, non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. Since its inception, the JFR has allocated over $46 million to assist rescuers in need.
This article is based on verified information from the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous, JNS, the Bocaraton Observer, and web updates from the JFR.