International Seminars in English and the Jewish World

About the Department

This department offers applicants unique 14-18 day teacher training seminars here in Jerusalem. The seminars are designed to give teachers and academics an intense learning experience focusing first and foremost on the history of the Shoah, while including a wide range of lectures and activities focusing upon a range of topics in the areas of art, theology, literature, antisemitism, and Holocaust denial.

Endeavors here in the department focus primarily though not exclusively upon two unique programs:

1. The international seminars in English are designed to address the interests and needs of academics, school teachers, members of the clergy, museum personnel, and community leaders. Participants routinely come from 10-15 countries and it is this diverse population that allows for an educational experience that challenges the participants to look not only at their own pedagogical and cultural views but also those of the teachers they meet here.
2. The seminar for Jewish educators in Jewish day schools is directed towards elementary through high school teachers, not only in the English speaking world, but worldwide. Presently the department hosts courses for Jewish educators in English, Russian, Hungarian, French, and Spanish. This area of the department is expanding rapidly as more courses in various languages are added.

Participants in all of the seminars attend lectures given by the top experts in the field of Holocaust research and education in the various Israeli universities and here at Yad Vashem. Those attending these seminars will have opportunities to pursue research in our archive and Pedagogical center. Our new on-line data- base accessible on line contains over three million names of those murdered in the Shoah. The new historical museum and learning center offer participants unique pedagogical and academic experiences.

The seminars also includes experiential components during which the participants travel to both the north and the south, seeing Israel, interacting with each other and the locales, and enjoying the opportunities for reflection and relaxation.

Participants will meet and learn from Holocaust survivors who share their personal testimonies in the seminars. In the courses these survivors share not only their war-time experiences but the lives they have created here in Israel and their individual outlook on the Shoah and life after liberation.

The courses and the resources here at Yad Vashem offer participants an unparalleled academic and pedagogical experience in Holocaust education. You might even ride a camel!

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