2010-02-06 00:46:26

Vogel's visit to yield new perspectives on Holocaust education

1. Vogel's visit to yield new perspectives on Holocaust education

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Written by Vinny Vella

When it comes to Israel, Robert Vogel is certainly no amateur. The long-time faculty member of La Salle’s education department has visited the country six times, both for business and pleasure. However, Vogel’s most recent foray into the nation was one of his most memorable, and for a good reason.
From Jan. 4 to the 14, Vogel and 16 of his colleagues from various universities across the United States attended an educational seminar in Jerusalem sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League, Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem International Institute and the USC Shoah Program.

Held at Yad Vashem’s International School for Holocaust Studies, the week-long seminar focused on educating its participants about the Holocaust as well as aiding the visiting educators in bringing their acquired knowledge back to their students.
The program was gathered into a curriculum known as Echoes and Reflections, which features new perspectives on the Holocaust that provide further insight into the tumultuous period. Such innovative viewpoints include the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as the “Righteous Gentiles,” non-Jewish heroes who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.
Vogel’s presence at the seminar came as a complete surprise.
“I didn’t know I was going until I received word that I was chosen,” he said. “Ya Vashem is the place to study the Holocaust, so I was extremely delighted.”
The ADL—an organization that fights bigotry on a global scale—scoured all eight of its regional U.S. districts for professors of education who possessed experience working with teachers and larger school systems. Vogel, who has worked closely with local middle school students as part of his Writing Matters program, seemed to be a prime candidate for selection, and was summarily recommended to attend the seminar by the regional ADL director and director of education.
Vogel and his peers spent most of the week in the aforementioned International School for Holocaust studies, undergoing a rigorous regimen of study that began early in the morning and often did not cease until the evening. According to Vogel, a typical day at the school involved meeting and discussing the Holocaust with various guest speakers, who ranged from lifelong scholars of the event to some of its survivors.
The visiting professors supplemented this personal education with visits to the recently-opened Holocaust History Museum (also located at Yad Vashem), a bastion of study that Vogel described as being a place that a scholar can “spend entire days in.”
Study was further enhanced by visits to many Jewish and Christian sites in Jerusalem as well as trips to Masada and the Dead Sea.
Having spent close to 38 years as a college professor, it was refreshing for Vogel to spend some time on the other end of the academic spectrum.
“I was a student for a whole week, taking notes and engaging in spirited discussions,” he said. “My goal was to find a way to take what was learned and implement it in my teaching and work with schools.”
For Vogel, the fondest memory of his time in Israel cannot be narrowed down to one particular anecdote or vignette. To him, his experience at the seminar will forever be a highly cherished collective memory.
“Just to experience being in a country like Israel, learning about how to use the knowledge of the Holocaust to educate children was amazing,” he said.
The fact that Vogel’s group was one of two faiths—of the 17 educators present at the seminar, the distribution of Jews and Christians was almost exactly even—only served to increase the gratification of the experience.
“Hearing and discussing the issues and challenges that come with interacting with people of different perspectives was most exciting. It helped me balance and re-shape my own perspectives.”
Now that a new semester has just begun, Vogel is more than ready to share what he has learned with the Lasallian community. Specifically, he plans on integrating various aspects of the Echoes and Reflections curriculum into his Writing Matters program, relating the Holocaust to the lives of the 900 middle school students enrolled within it.
In the future, Vogel would also like to offer a travel study course to Israel, giving interested students a chance to understand the inner dynamics of the country from sources not often exploited: Israeli, Christian and Arab students their own age.
“I am most interested in having La Salle students engaged in serious dialogue to better understand the complex issues facing the people in this part of the world,” he said.
To Vogel, the Holocaust is more than just a horrific event in the history of our world. It is a lesson to be studied by people of all walks of life and can be related to more current genocides such as those committed in Rwanda and Bosnia.
“A lot of students don’t care about the Holocaust,” he said, “because they can’t relate to it. “
“In reality, the Holocaust has connections to many present events and, in order to be educated students, young people need to understand it and the role it plays in world history.”