Spring 2025 Holocaust & Genocide Educator Workshop

Belonging: Reconsidering Antisemitism, Islamophobia, and other Racisms

With special guest, Ben Lorber

Tuesday, May 20, 2025
8:30 am – 3:00 pm at Ramapo College of New Jersey

This workshop is free-of-charge to all educators in our region.
Breakfast, lunch, and refreshments will be served.
Professional development credits available.

Attendance is limited to 80 participants on a first-come, first-served basis.
We will operate a waiting list.

This program has already passed.

We have witnessed and tracked concerning increases in antisemitism and Islamophobia over the past years. Strident debates about race and racism feature prominently in politics and media. This turn has presented significant challenges not only to students, but also to the teachers and administrators called upon to respond, often in the eye of a divided public with competing sets of definitions and demands.

This semester’s workshop will feature discussions with Ben Lorber, Senior Research Analyst at Political Research Associates, and CHGS Director Jacob Ari Labendz. Both scholars have developed belonging- and solidarity-centric approaches to studying and responding to racism, antisemitism, and Islamophobia. This contrasts with frameworks focused primarily on defining, naming, and shaming real and perceived manifestations of bigotry—frameworks which have failed to meet the present moment and which may even have exacerbated the problems we face together.

Colleen Tambuscio, our Pedagogy Programs Administrator (see below), will deliver an interactive presentation to introduce participants to classroom and program resources, as well as the services that the CHGS can offer their schools and organizations.

Ben Lorber works as a Senior Research Analyst at Political Research Associates, focusing on white nationalism and antisemitism. Lorber has worked as a journalist, organizer and movement-builder for over a decade. He has published on right-wing social movements, Israel/Palestine, Jewish culture and other topics at The Nation, Salon, Jewish Currents, and more. He is the co-author of Safety through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism (2024).

We thank the NJ Commission on Holocaust Education for their support!