Monday, April 27 at 7:00 pm in Friends Hall, Ramapo College

Non-Ramapo guests should email holgen@ramapo.edu for registration and parking.

Please join us as we honor and learn from Dr. Meghan Riley, who has admirably won our inaugural, annual prize in Holocaust and antisemitism studies.

We are devastated to note that Bonnie Fertel, who endowed this prize and lecture in loving memory of her husband, Richard, passed away this year. We shall hold her in our hearts as well.

Description of Dr. Riley’s Lecture
Between August 6 and November 11, 1942, 11,012 Jewish men, women, and children were deported from the internment camps of Unoccupied France to Auschwitz, where most of them were immediately murdered. On the ground in France, an assortment of American humanitarians provided the deportees with food, books, medicine, and emotional support; took their luggage and belongings for safekeeping; and passed along their final messages. These humanitarians also helped decide who would be deported and who would be spared. The shocking role relief workers played in determining who would meet the German deportation quotas was unique in Nazi Europe; nevertheless, as Dr. Riley will argue, it provides an opportunity to reexamine some of the fundamental concepts, like rescue, bystanding, and collaboration, that structure our understanding of the Holocaust.

Dr. Meghan Riley
Meghan Riley earned her PhD in European History at Indiana University. She is especially interested in the intersection of humanitarianism and the Holocaust, which her first book project, “A Sword Trembles Overhead: American Humanitarian Relief in the Concentration Camps of Unoccupied France, 1939-42,” explores. During the 2017-2018 academic year she was a Fulbright Fellow in France, and from 2017 to 2019 she was a Saul Kagan Fellow in Advanced Shoah Studies. She has participated in the Global Humanitarianism Research Academy and the Auschwitz Jewish Studies Fellows Program. Her doctoral research has been supported by the American Academy of Jewish Research as well by multiple departments and programs at Indiana University. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Martin- Springer Institute at Northern Arizona University.

The Fertel Prize and Lecture

We invite early-career scholars, who meet the conditions set forth below, to submit a proposal for a prize lecture to be delivered on Ramapo College campus in the second half of the Spring 2026 semester. (Receipt of the award is conditional upon the in-person delivery of the lecture. Accommodations will be made for individuals with disabilities.) The lecture must draw upon original research in either antisemitism or Holocaust studies and from disciplines in the humanities and social sciences.

CHGS and the entire Ramapo Community would like to express our  gratitude to Bonnie Bornstein Fertel for endowing this annual lecture and prize in memory of her husband, Richard E. Fertel, z”l. Mrs. Bornstein Fertel’s gift reminds us of the wonderful and consequential things we can build and accomplish together.

Honors and Privileges

The 2026 Richard E. Fertel Scholar will offer an in-person lecture at Ramapo College at a time of mutual convenience during the months of March, April, or May 2026.

The CHGS Director and a representative from Ramapo College will formally bestow the honor of having been selected as the inaugural Richard E. Fertel Scholar upon the selected applicant. The honoree’s name and the title of their lecture will be listed on the CHGS website.

The Richard E. Fertel Scholar will receive an honorarium of $1,500. CHGS will also cover (reasonable) costs associated with return travel and accommodations in Mahwah, NJ.

The Richard E. Fertel Scholar may be invited to a small dinner in their honor, with Ramapo students, faculty, and staff, as well as members of the Fertel family and the local public.

The application window for 2025-2026 has closed. Please check back in the fall for application information.

Richard E. Fertel, z”l 

Richard E. Fertel z”l (March 29, 1951 – October 22, 2022) was born and raised in the Bronx, where he, his brother, and parents lived in the same walk-up apartment building as his grandparents, Helen and Oscar. Oscar, who immigrated to the United States from the Russian Empire in 1904, had a profound influence on young Richard. He took him, eight-years-old at the time, to the opening of the Guggenheim Museum and to AT&T shareholder meetings; they worshiped together each week at the neighborhood Orthodox synagogue for the Sabbath. Richard’s family never discussed any relatives lost in the Holocaust but he understood what it meant when letters from family members in Europe ceased during the war, forever.

Bonnie Bornstein Fertel, Richard’s wife of fifty years, shared that her husband’s warmth and humor provided the foundation for many loving family tales. Richard and Bonnie married at the young age of twenty-one. In significant ways, they grew up together. Richard studied history and anthropology in college, reflecting his lifelong, insatiable hunger for knowledge and his particular interest in the Second World War. Bonnie recalls that Richard must have seen every Holocaust film multiple times. Richard, blessed with a flair for storytelling, shared what he learned and knew with Bonnie and their two daughters, Pamela and Jill.

To honor Richard’s lifelong interest in the history of the Holocaust and raising awareness about antisemitism, Bonnie has endowed an annual lecture and prize for emerging scholars working in the fields of Holocaust and antisemitism studies.