Yad Vashem to unveil new wing

New building will provide a venue for educators from around the world to learn about the Holocaust.

By GIL STERN STERN SHEFLER
Yad Vashem 390 (photo credit: Courtesy of Yad Vashem)
Yad Vashem 390
(photo credit: Courtesy of Yad Vashem)
The Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem are slated to unveil a new education wing on Monday.
Minister of Education Gideon Sa’ar and Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird will attend the dedication of the 45,000-sq.ft. International Seminars Wing of the International School for Holocaust Studies, which will provide a venue for educators from around the world to learn about the murder of six million Jews by the Nazis and their allies during World War II.
“Paradoxically, more than six decades later, it seems that interest in the Holocaust, as well as the desire of educators to learn about the event and acquire the tools for meaningful Holocaust education is only growing,” said Avner Shalev, chairman of Yad Vashem.
“Over the past few years, the number of seminars for educators has doubled; in the last year alone, the school has hosted 67 seminars for educators and lay leaders from around the globe.”
In recent years Yad Vashem has increased the number of seminars it offers to foreign educators. Evidence of the outreach program’s success can be seen every day at the museum’s busy dining hall, where the chatter of hungry diners in over a dozen languages can be heard. The museum has also made a special effort to reach out to countries whose citizens might not be as familiar with the tragedy of Jews in Europe as others, holding special courses geared toward educators in Latin America and Asia.
The new wing, which has 11 new classrooms, a videoconference suite, conference rooms and auxiliary facilities, was built thanks to donations from Joseph Gottdenker of Canada along with Friends of Yad Vashem worldwide. The 330-seat Edmond J. Safra Lecture Hall was donated by the Edmond J. Safra Philanthropic Foundation, a charity established by the estate of the late Brazilian Jewish banker. The International Seminars Wing was designed by Guggenheim-Bloch.