On October 6-8, the city of Bakuriani will host an international seminar on the EAJC program “Tolerance – Lessons of the Holocaust” for teachers of Georgian and Armenian non-Jewish middle schools. This seminar is held by the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress (EAJC), together with the Ukrainian Center for Holocaust Studies (Director – EAJC General Council member, Dr. Anatoliy Podolsky), with the aid of the Jewish Cultural and Educational Foundation (Georgia; Director – EAJC General Council member Elena Berkovich) and the Center of Professional Development for Teachers, affiliated with the Georgian Ministry of Education and Science.

The three-day seminar is planned as a mix of lectures and workshops, with emphasis on practical work and training.

A small percent of the teachers who will participate in the seminar already hold school lectures both as part of the curriculum and as extracurricular activities. But most teachers do not have experience in teaching tolerance and lessons of the Holocaust, and the seminar will provide the necessary theoretical and practical knowledge to help them in their continued work with students.

About the “Tolerance – Lessons of the Holocaust” program:

The “Tolerance – Lessons of the Holocaust” (Director – Dorina Zilbermintz)is a system of seminar education for teachers of the humanities in non-Jewish schools, as well as for staff members of different CIS educational institutions. Teachers who have participated in the seminar continue and broaden their work in their regions, working both in school and out of school. “History and Lessons of the Holocaust” contests of scholarly and creative works for school children are held yearly in different CIS countries for children from 8 to 12th grade. The works for these contests examine different aspects of the Holocaust and international tolerance, and special attention is given to local history and local tragedies.

The EAJC “Tolerance – Lessons of the Holocaust” program has been being implemented in CIS countries for over 10 years now, and has amassed considerable experience in organizing and holding seminars and school competitions, as well as in educating school teachers in the methods of fostering inter-ethnic and interfaith tolerance by teaching the history and lessons of the Holocaust.
The EAJC has successfully held “Tolerance – Lessons of the Holocaust” seminars in Georgia in 2003, 2006, and 2007.

On April 25, a Memorandum of Cooperation on the “Tolerance – Lessons of the Holocaust” program was signed in Tbilisi between the EAJC, the Jewish Cultural and Educational Foundation (Georgia) and the Georgian Ministry of Education and Science. The goal of this signing is the cooperation between these parties to raise the new generation in the spirit of inter-ethnic and interfaith tolerance.