Living, as we do, in a time of unmitigated hatred, hate crimes, acts of antisemitism and extremism, we must take steps of awareness and action. With programming, to include social media posts and a six-part workshop series (offered virtually), Holocaust Museum Houston takes on a new kind of leadership and outreach.
The goal of the Creating Possibility | Disallowing Hatred Program is to cultivate Upstanders who are aware of the power of hatred in human decision making and to provide community members an opportunity to learn important concepts of history, civic awareness, and social justice. This program empowers community members to reflect and act.
We must find ways to talk and interact with each other beyond boundaries. At the same time, we must create ways to disallow hatred in our culture, two actions that may seem contradictory, but are essential in this time of our society’s history.
In each session of the Creating Possibility | Disallowing Hatred sessions, we will share a critique of a piece of hate rhetoric, extremism, and/or antisemitism, with the goal of educating the community on how to recognize, reflect on and respond to hateful content.
Coordinated with social media outreach, we offer a series of six workshops co-facilitated by Mary Lee Webeck, Ph.D.; Holocaust and Genocide Education Endowed Chair – Celebrating the Life of Survivor Naomi Warren and Beverly Nolan, Ed.D., Chair – Education Advisory Committee, Holocaust Museum Houston.
Featured Speaker: Mark Weitzman
Mark Weitzman is Director of Government Affairs for the Simon Wiesenthal Center. He was responsible for introducing and steering to adoption the "Working Definition of Antisemitism' at the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), where he is the senior member of the US delegation. He was also the lead author of IHRA's Working Definition of Holocaust Denial and Distortion. A member of the Program on Religion and Foreign Policy at the Council of Foreign Relations, he is currently editing A History of Antisemitism (Routledge, 2021) and was a winner of the National Jewish Book Award in 2007 for Antisemitism, the Generic Hatred: Essays in Memory of Simon Wiesenthal. He currently serves as Vice-President of the Association of Holocaust Organizations.