Holocaust education breakthrough?
07/10/2023
2023 has already been full of breakthroughs, and we have great plans to keep growing The Mitzvah Project’s reach and impact. I’m hoping you will support our Summer Campaign and keep us on track to meet the opportunities and challenges ahead.
Since January, The Mitzvah Project has brought our historically accurate and deeply personal Holocaust theatre performance and talkback experience to 2,500 students. Most have been high schoolers – who need the chance to learn the lessons of the Holocaust so they can build their lives and a future full of human compassion and free of prejudice and hate.
It’s been extremely gratifying to hear how The Mitzvah Project has been unlocking the hearts and minds of so many students.
After a powerful Mitzvah Project performance, lecture and talkback by teaching artist Elijah Alexander, Jeff Osborn, Assistant Principal at California High School (San Ramon, CA) reached out to share this impact:
“…a student with whom I have a good connection was so inspired that he plans to talk to his father to share what he learned and begin exploring his own Jewish background.”
“…It was always difficult for [another student] to speak up or engage – in any context. I had tried so hard to pull words out of him the previous week. After the presentation, he couldn’t stop talking to me.”
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After my Mitzvah Project presentation at Sonoma State University in April, Sakina Bryant, the Writing Center Faculty Director wrote:
“My course is about two-thirds first-year students, most from first generation immigrant backgrounds. They knew very little about the Holocaust. I mean literally almost nothing at all! They were so deeply moved to want to learn more. I mean like everything! No holds barred!”
This was The Mitzvah Project’s second presentation at Sonoma State. Sakina and her colleagues are eager to bring us back again – as are growing numbers of other schools:
Hofstra University (NY) and Ocean Country College (NJ) have sponsored multiple presentations of The Mitzvah Project and the Sacramento (CA) and Long Beach (CA) Unified School Districts; Jefferson County schools (CO), the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics (Durham, NC) and Northgate High School (Walnut Creek, CA) will be hosting return engagements.
The Mitzvah Project is inspiring schools and school districts to deepen their commitments to Holocaust education and to approach Holocaust education in new and more engaged ways.
It really helps that we offer The Mitzvah Project completely free of charge to public schools and school districts, which is why your financial support is so important and why I’m asking for your generous support today.
Your support is also the reason we can respond to teachers and schools when they ask us to help their students learn and grow from controversies that raise questions about bias and antisemitism.
As a result of a recent incident, school administrators from the Hayward (CA) Unified School District asked me to bring The Mitzvah Project to the district’s three high schools to help students explore historical connections between antisemitism, racism and white supremacy and tackle profound questions like, “Why do we demonize ‘the other’.”
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I have been particularly inspired and proud to roll out The Mitzvah Project Teaching Artist program!
Elijah Alexander has been brilliant in kicking off the work of this talented team, presenting at nine institutions in the first four months of the year. This summer he’s playing leading roles in two productions at the Utah Shakespeare Festival – and then will be back on the road to Florida, Illinois and North Carolina with The Mitzvah Project.
Victor Talmadge will be leading his first Mitzvah Project tour at high schools and colleges in the greater Boston Area this fall. Victor will be a Visiting Professor of Theater at Northeastern University. On his days off, he’ll present The Mitzvah Project to 1,000 students at Brockton High School and two other high schools with the state’s highest enrollments.
I am so excited and proud to share our impact with you – and ask for your support.
We want to meet the increased demand and need for highly engaged Holocaust education and make sure that our dedicated Mitzvah Project teaching artists are fully supported as they bring their incredible talents and personal family Holocaust stories to students. We want to keep reaching out to more public schools and offer this transformative experience entirely free of charge.
Please consider making a tax-deductible “multiple-chai”- inspired gift of $36, $360, $3,600 or more. Every gift – no matter how large or small – will make a difference.
To make your donation online, click here.
To donate by mail, please make your check to “PlayGround” (our fiscal sponsor), adding The Mitzvah Project in the memo section. Mail it to Playground, 3286 Adeline Street #8, Berkeley, CA 94703-2485.
Thank you!
Roger Grunwald, Founder, The Mitzvah Project
*** P.S. Thank you again for being part of our community of support.
Please consider amplifying your support by making your contribution a recurring gift – or by applying for a match if your company has a matching gift program. If you have questions, please email me at roger.grunwald@themitzvah.org.
