Victorian teachers welcomed back
Fourteen Victorian educators have been welcomed back from the 2012/13 Holocaust studies course at Yad Vashem, Jerusalem.
Teachers return
Attended by approximately 100 people at Beth Weizmann, the function was organised by Raoul Wallenberg Unit of B’nai B’rith, which began this program with three teachers in 1998. Since then, over 75 teachers have undertaken the course, returning to their schools throughout Victoria to teach Holocaust from a Jewish perspective. Now named the Pauline Glass Yad Vashem Study Grants, $6,000 is raised for each teacher’s participation in the three-week course.
In recent years, Yad Vashem developed a 12-month program for Australian educators. This includes:
- A pre-seminar, online preparatory course
- January – An 18-day seminar
- May – A visit to Australia by the seminar coordinator to check teachers’ projects and for further discussions
- November – A visit to Australia by the head of the seminar for discussions with the new awardees for the ensuing year’s seminar.
Each year, Raoul Wallenberg Unit organises a farewell and a welcome back afternoon tea at which each of the awardees speak about their expectations and hopes of the course and their visit to Israel and, upon their return, deliver excellent speeches about their experiences, many of them reporting that they had been life-changing.
The program is supported mainly by the generosity of donors.
