Yad Vashem inaugurates Monday the new international seminars wing of the International School for Holocaust Studies, supported by Joseph Gottdenker of Canada along with Friends of Yad Vashem worldwide, and the new Edmond J. Safra Lecture Hall, donated by the Edmond J. Safra Philanthropic Foundation.
The new wing adds 45,000 square feet of space to the International School, and provides state-of-the-art facilities, to meet the ever-expanding demand for educational seminars for teachers and opinion-shapers from Israel and around the globe.
Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird and Israeli Minister of Education Gideon Sa’ar will attend the inauguration event along with the donors, dignitaries and educators.
Since the establishment of the International School for Holocaust Studies in 1994 and the redevelopment of the entire campus, Yad Vashem has become a world center for teaching about the Holocaust.
"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."
The International School for Holocaust Studies holds seminars for educators from some 55 countries around the world, as well as in Israel. It develops custom-made pedagogical tools for specific countries and age groups, in more than 20 languages, and hosts hundreds of thousands of students and soldiers annually.
The international seminars wing was designed by Guggenheim-Bloch, the architectural firm behind the construction of the International School building in 1999.