York University Offers Up Credible, Compelling Sources During Holocaust Education Week (November 8-15, 1998)

TORONTO, November 10, 1998 -- The Holocaust remains one of the most significant events of contemporary human history. York University offers media outlets comprehensive and diverse perspectives on what the Holocaust meant, what it means today, what we have learned, and what remains to be done to come to terms with this monumental crime. See below for a partial list of York's Holocaust experts whose scholarship and experiences make them credible and compelling sources.

Shelley Hornstein is Associate Professor of Art History, Chair of Fine Arts, at York's Atkinson College. She is currently co-authoring a book titled Culture, Memory and Resistance: Representation and the Holocaust. Hornstein is about to start an international speaking tour about how architecture captures memory in the context of the Holocaust. She can be reached at (416) 736-2100, ext. 66623, or via e-mail at shelleyh@yorku.ca.

Prof. Irving Abella holds the J. Richard Shiff Chair for the Study of Canadian Jewry at York University. He is one of Canada's most distinguished writers, scholars and community leaders. The author or co-author of six books, he has earned numerous distinctions and honours, including several Canada Council awards, a Guggenheim Fellowship and the National Jewish Book Award for None Is Too Many. He is president-elect of the Canadian Historical Society, chair of the Board of Governors for the Canadian Jewish Congress, and a member of the academic advisory committee for the new Holocaust Gallery at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Ottawa. Abella is an expert on Holocaust issues in Canada, and can be reached at (416) 736-2100, ext. 88525, or via e-mail at iabella@yorku.ca.

Michael Brown is Director of the Centre for Jewish Studies at York University and Professor of Humanities and Hebrew. For 20 years, Prof. Brown has taught a course at York University on the Holocaust, one of the first such courses in Canada. He has written several articles on Holocaust literature, and recently co-edited the book Creating the Jewish Future, which is being launched Nov, 11, 1998 (see details below). He is interested in all aspects of the Holocaust, and can be reached at (416) 736-5823, or by e-mail at michaelb@yorku.ca.

Michael Kater is a Distinguished Research Professor of History at the Canadian Centre for German and European Studies at York University. He is an expert on the Third Reich and German National Socialism. Kater has written extensively on culture and music in the context of the Holocaust, and the experience of persecution and exile of Jewish artists such as Arnold Shoenberg and Kurt Weill. He is the author of Different Drummers: Jazz and the Culture of National Socialism, as well as The Twisted Muse: Musicians and their Music in the Third Reich. His most recent book, Composers of the Nazi Era: Eight Portraits will be published in 1999. His other areas of expertise include the role of the S.S. as technicians of the Holocaust, and the history of medicine and the Holocaust, including eugenics and medical experimentation. Kater can be reached at (416) 736-5695, or (905) 845-7021.

Mark Webber is a Professor of German and Humanities at York University, and Co-Director of the Canadian Centre for German and European Studies at York. Last summer he led a group of 15 high school teachers from across Canada on a trip to Germany, Poland and Israel to visit Holocaust sites and foster the teachers' anti-racist education curriculum through the example of the Holocaust. This fall, Webber visited Germany as the only Canadian member of an international election observer team for the recent German federal elections, during which he examined potential threats of right-wing extremism to German democracy. He has visited the Dachau concentration camp memorial in Germany, as well as several death camps in Germany and Poland, including Sachsenhausen, Treblinka, Maidanek, Auschwitz I and II, and the Plaszow concentration camp and related factory sites which were the subject of the film "Schindler's List." Webber is interested in the issue of Holocaust monuments in Germany, and can be reached at (416) 736-5695, or by cellular phone at (416) 707-2663.

Book Launch: "Creating the Jewish Future"
(edited by York professors Michael Brown and Bernard Lightman)
Wednesday, November 11, 1998, 7:30 p.m.
Beth Tzedec Synagogue, Paul and Ted Orenstein Mezzanine Hall
1700 Bathurst St.

Media are invited to attend the launch of a new book published by the Centre for Jewish Studies at York University. After opening remarks by Mr. Bernhard Ghert, Conference Sponsor, a panel discussion will follow on the subject of "Creating the Jewish Future: Priorities Reexamined." Panelists include:

Professor Morton Weinfeld, McGill University
Rabbi Baruch Frydman-Kohl, Beth Tzedec Synagogue
Ms. Elizabeth Wolfe, Toronto Community Volunteer
Professor Martin Lockshin, York University, Moderator

-30-

For more information, please contact:

Sine MacKinnon
Senior Advisor for Media Relations
York University
(416) 736-2100, ext. 22087

Ken Turriff
Media Relations Officer
York University
(416) 736-2100, ext. 22086
YU/080/98