FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media are welcome at all conference events. To make arrangements, contact
conference co-chair Susan Prohofsky at
sue@glhrc.org, 765.463.1980 or
publicity chair Carol Bloom at
cbloom@purdue.edu, 765.496.7998

The Greater Lafayette Holocaust Remembrance Conference begins March 1

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — The 26th annual Greater Lafayette Holocaust Remembrance Conference, titled "A 21st-Century Perspective on the Holocaust," will be held March 1 to March 9. Conference events are held almost every day at various locations on the Purdue University campus.

Find complete details about this long-standing conference’s events on www.glhrc.org/

The Greater Lafayette Holocaust Remembrance Committee has planned a strong lineup of speakers and exhibitions that continues its 2006 theme of genocide around the world. “We sadly live in a world where radical elements in rogue nations and others deny that Nazi Germany and its allies committed ethnic atrocities during World War II. It has been 62 years since the Allies freed people in the death camps and the world learned about the Holocaust,” said conference co-chair Susan Prohofsky.

"It's important that we not let time gloss over or wipe out the truth of what happened during that 20th-century era of hate, and especially during this new century when we see new seeds of hatred rise up and feed violence across the globe. We must do everything we can to remember what happened then," Prohofsky said. "We must find ways to encourage our leaders to confront such terror and assist in negotiating peaceful resolutions between warring factions."

Thursday, March 1
Preconference events begin with a free art exhibit, on loan from the Vancouver (Canada) Holocaust Education Centre. “Shoes of Memory,” a ceramic work by Jenny Stolzenberg, will be on exhibit from March 1 to 15 at Rueff Gallery in Pao Hall on the Purdue campus. Musician Jerry Silverman, who has collected and performs songs from the Holocaust, will entertain during the opening reception, which begins at 7 p.m. on Thursday, March 1.

Friday, March 2
A preconference Shabbat dinner at Hillel will feature a discussion with Prof. Charles Small of Yale University, who is an expert in global antisemitism. RSVPs for dinner are due on or before Wednesday, Feb. 28 by calling the Hillel Foundation at 765.743.1293. The meal is $3 for students, and adults may donate as they wish.

Sunday, March 4
This year’s conference, which balances subjects concerning the Holocaust of Nazi Germany with today’s hate crimes, antisemitism, and genocides, officially begins with registration at 2:30 p.m., Sunday, March 4, in Purdue's Stewart Center, Room 214.

Proclamations by Lafayette Mayor Tony Roswarski and former West Lafayette Mayor Sonya Margerum will open the event, followed by welcoming remarks and ceremonial proceedings by Prohofsky and co-chair Johanna Gartenhaus; and Brad Bodine and the St. Tom's Singers.

This conference marks the first lecture named in honor of its founder, Rabbi Gedalyah Engel. The committee announced this special recognition of Rabbi Engel last year as it commemorated 25 years of offering this free conference to the University and Greater Lafayette communities.

Following is the schedule of other conference events, which are free and open to the public:

Sunday, March 4
3:30 p.m. Stewart Center, Room 214. Jan T. Gross, history professor from Princeton University, will present "Reflections on the Frightening Legacy of the Holocaust." Introduction by Prof. George Horwich.

4:30 p.m. Stewart Center, Room 214. Charles Small, founding director of the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy at Yale University, will present "Globalization and Its Impact on Contemporary Antisemitism." Introduction by Prof. Rachel Einwohner.

6:30 p.m., Dinner at the Anniversary Drawing Room, Purdue Memorial Union. RSVP by Feb. 27 to sue@glhrc.org. Adults, $15. Students, $3.

8 p.m. Rawls Hall, Room 1086. Anna Berkovitz, a Holocaust survivor and West Lafayette resident, will discuss “Revisiting Auschwitz.”

Tuesday, March 6
7:30 p.m. St. Thomas Aquinas Center, 535 W. State St., West Lafayette. “New Directions in Jewish–Christian Dialogue.” Tom Ryba, of the University of Notre Dame will moderate this panel discussion, involving Rabbi Jack Bemporad, a Holocaust refugee from Italy and currently the director of the Center for Interreligious Understanding in New Jersey, and Kevin Hughes, theology and religious studies professor at Villanova University in Pennsylvania.

Respondents will be English professor Ann Astell and Jewish Studies director Dan Frank, both of Purdue University.

Wednesday, March 7
7:30 p.m., Krannert Auditorium, Purdue University. 7:30 p.m. “A Symposium on the Darfur Catastrophe.” Ray Dumett, history professor of Purdue University will moderate the discussion, led by social science professor Benaiah Yongo-Bure of Kettering University in Flint, Mich.; Ali Dinar, outreach director of the African Studies Center at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia; and Karen Hirschfeld, Sudan Coordinator of the Physicians for Human Rights in Cambridge, Mass.

Thursday, March 8
7 p.m., Hillel, 912 W. State St., West Lafayette. Showing of the 2005 film, “Protocols of Zion.” This 95-min. documentary, directed by Marc Levin, is about the rise of anti-Semitism in the USA after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Discussion following.

Friday, March 9
8:30 p.m., Temple Israel, 620 Cumberland Ave., West Lafayette. “Anti-Gay Activism and the Propaganda of Hate,” presented by John Metzinger, president of the local Citizens for Civil Rights. Presentation and discussion follows Shabbat services, which begin at 7:30 p.m.

The conference is sponsored at Purdue by the Ackerman Center of the College of Education, the College of Liberal Arts, the Department of History and the Jewish Studies Program.

Additional sponsors are the Diocese of Lafayette and the St. Thomas Aquinas Center; the Hillel Foundation; the Jewish Federation of Greater Lafayette; Tippecanoe County Religious Leaders; University Religious Leaders; Congregation Sons of Abraham; and Temple Israel.

Holocaust Remembrance Day, known in Hebrew as Yom HaShoah, will be observed this year on April 15. Translated from Hebrew, the phrase means “day of catastrophe.”