2024 Powell-Heller Conference for Holocaust Education:
“Sephardic Jewish Voices and Experiences in the Holocaust”
Nov. 6-8, 2024
Thanks to the generosity of donors this event is free and open to the public.
The Experience of Sephardic Jews and the Holocaust
At least 160,000 Sephardic Jews perished in the Holocaust, yet their stories are not well-known by many. Through the use of archival sources, interviews with survivors, and family histories, what emerges is a picture of shared tragedy with Ashkenazi Jews. The Sephardim experience show us that their suffering stretched across countries, even across continents, and their distinctive characteristics such as speaking Ladino and pronouncing Hebrew words slightly differently than their Ashkenazim brethren, should be studied more widely to further our understanding of the complex phenomenon of the Holocaust.
Please join us from November 6 – November 8, 2024 for the 16th Annual Powell-Heller Conference for Holocaust Education to hear scholars from all over the world broaden our understanding of the terrible impact that the Holocaust had on Jewish communities. Our opening keynote speaker on Wednesday, November 6, 2024 at 7:00 pm in the AUC Regency Room, will be Professor Devin E. Naar, the Isaac Alhadeff Professor of Sephardic Studies and Associate Professor of History, and is faculty at the Stroum Center for Jewish Studies in the Jackson School of International Studies at University of Washington-Seattle. His talk will be “From the Ottoman Empire to the Holocaust.” Please see the conference website for further information. The conference is free and open to the public.
PLU’s mission to support the education of our students and larger community on issues of diversity and justice are intimately connected to the study of the tragedy of the Holocaust. Students can see that marginalization of a minority group, such as the Jews of Nazi Germany, can lead to life-threatening situations culminating in one of the world’s modern genocides. Issues of distortion and denial make the process of reconciliation and healing less likely and serve as an insult to the memory of all those whose lives were destroyed in the Holocaust.