ACE Presents: Contemporary Anti-Semitism: The Metamorphosis of Ancient Jew Hatred

This talk will examine two insidious, interrelated and deeply disturbing trends in both United States and Europe, namely the dramatic resurgence of Anti-Semitic incidents ranging from physical, verbal and lethal hate-induced terrorist attacks on Jews to the desecration of synagogue and cemeteries to the harassment and violence toward Jewish students on college campuses around the country, a corresponding and alarming decline in knowledge and awareness of the Holocaust, the Nazi genocidal extermination of 6 million Jews during WWII. Dr. Berkowitz will begin his lecture with an incisive analysis of the origins and metamorphosis of Jew-hatred over the millennia. He will then delineate the ubiquitously rising tide of contemporary Anti-Semitism emanating from the far Left, White Supremacists and Islamic Extremists, especially their challenges of the legitimate right of the State of Israel to exist. He will present the latest research on the escalation of Jewish hatred in the last decade and the concomitant retreat from the commitment to “never forget” the Shoah by mandating and delivering Holocaust education in our nation’s schools. Dr. Berkowitz will make the compelling case that the decline in Holocaust education has contributed to the rise of Anti-Semitism in America and Europe. He will conclude this thought-provoking lecture by emphatically contending that Holocaust education should be driven by the “moral imperative” to teach future generations what happened, how and why as well as preventing it and/or other genocides from reoccurring.

Instructor: Dr. Irving Berkowitz | Wednesday, November 6 | 1:00 pm