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Greenberg Center promotes Holocaust education, cross-cultural understanding

Paulette and David GreenbergTHE Greenberg Center for Learning and Tolerance, founded in 2003 by Paulette and David Greenberg, promotes learning, understanding and acceptance of diverse cultures in Colorado Springs and throughout the world.

The center offers a community-wide program each year in collaboration with local prominent organizations, in addition to involvement and support of community events and programs throughout the year.

The center’s goals include :

• providing materials for informing, educating and increasing the understanding of cultural differences in the Colorado Springs community;

• sponsoring programs in the community in collaboration with community non-profit organizations; and

• providing information and programming to community professionals who increase understanding and tolerance of both children and adults about diversity in Colorado Springs.

This focus is particularly important in Colorado Springs, which has a wide variety of political, religious and ethnic organizations that are prominent at the local and national level.

RECOGNIZING the need for Holocaust education in the school systems and the community, the Greenberg Center coordinated a comprehensive exhibit titled “The Courage to Remember: The Holocaust 1933-1945” in 2007.

Purchased by the Pikes Peak Library District from the Simon Wiesenthal Center, this exhibit attracts more library patrons than any other exhibit.

Each year Colorado College utilizes the full exhibit with 40 wall panels describing the Holocaust in photos, words, and quotes.

Videos of Holocaust survivors and sobering images draw students and adults through the exhibit in a quiet atmosphere.

The college displays the full exhibit in the student center for a week, encouraging and allowing students to peruse it several times and absorb the information with other students and faculty.

A condensed exhibit with 20 wall panels is often utilized by school systems especially for middle school students as part of their education about this important period of history.

“When the Land Was Sacred: Our Living Heritage” opens Nov. 3 at Red Ledge Ranch Indian Village in the Springs. The collection includes photographs and artifacts dealing with Native Americans’ rights and sovereignty throughout history and the unresolved concerns and issues in America today.

KOBI Chumash, president of the Greenberg Center board, says that “a key advantage of these programs is that these are right in our backyard, right here in our local community as part of the important history of our region.”

Over the years, more than 400,000 people have visited exhibitions on the Holocaust, the genocide in Darfur, terrorism in Israel, WW II and Colorado history at the Pikes Peak Library.

The center was founded under the auspices of Temple Shalom and is currently in the process of acquiring a 501C3 status.

“As an Israeli who have lived in Colorado Springs many years, I think that we can always benefit from everything which expands and educates people of all ages who come from different cultures and backgrounds,” says Chumash, Jewish life coordinator at Colorado College.

“I believe that regardless of one’s background, we can all learn things from other cultures and from our differences, so I feel a particular devotion to the opportunities this organization brings to Colorado.”

Information: www.thegreenbergcenter.org.




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