DALIA SABLE

SCHOOL and university teachers from across Australia are setting off for Israel to take part in an intensive course designed to broaden their knowledge of the Shoah.

The members of the 20-strong delegation are participants in the inaugural Gandel Holocaust Studies Program for Australian Educators.

Conducted by the Yad Vashem International School for Holocaust Studies in Jerusalem, the initiative is a long-term course to educate and mentor the group, beginning with an intensive training seminar in Israel, followed by a year-long program back home.

“This is an extremely important initiative and we are delighted to be involved,” John Gandel said upon announcing the successful scholarship recipients.

“The participants will come home to intensify and broaden their study of the Holocaust in their work and to raise awareness of the Holocaust within their communities. We believe their visit to Israel and attendance at the Yad Vashem course will be a highlight of their professional careers and their life in general.”

The Gandel Charitable Trust has provided scholarships for 10 educators, with Yad Vashem sponsoring a further 10 people.

The director of the International School for Holocaust Studies at Yad Vashem, Dorit Novak, told The AJN that the group of Australians would become a part of a “cadre” of educators from around the world with “the knowledge and tools for meaningful Holocaust education”.

They would also become a part of a worldwide network able to share and exchange information about Holocaust education initiatives.

“The Holocaust is a part of the shared identity of our civilisation -– certainly part of our shared identity as Jews, but also part of the shared identity of our modern civilisation,” she said.

“Educators are in the unique position to be a part of building and strengthening the shared values that underpin our civilisation and that were undermined during the Holocaust, and can infuse it with meaning when transmitting it to their students.”

According to Novak, the Gandel Holocaust Studies Program will also enable a meaningful, long-term relationship between Australia and Yad Vashem.

“Yad Vashem has worked with Australian educators in the past, but the new Gandel program will transform periodic seminars into a comprehensive, sustainable program.

With Australia expected to mandate Holocaust education in the schools beginning in 2011, this project is perfectly timed to prepare educators to meet the challenges of meaningful, multidisciplinary Holocaust education in the new century.”