The countless moral issues arising out of the Holocaust for both perpetrators and survivors continue to haunt their descendants and civilized society. With Morality and the Holocaust as the theme of this year’s Leonard Wolinsky Lectures on Jewish Life and Education, the Centre for Jewish Studies at York University hosts two distinguished scholars on the subject on Sunday, March 23, 2pm in the Founders Assembly Hall, 152 Founders College.
Prof. David Engel will speak on “The Changing Face of the Collaborator”. Engel is the Maurice and Corinne Greenberg Professor of Holocaust Studies at New York University and is a member of the Academic Committee of the US Holocaust Memorial Council. He has published numerous books on the Holocaust and Polish-Jewish relations in English, Hebrew and Polish.
Prof. Michael Steinlauf will speak on the topic, “Is Memory Moral? Poland After the Jedwabne Controversy”. Following his talk, he will present a video on contemporary Jewish life in Poland. Steinlauf is a professor of history at Gratz College in Philadelphia. He has visited Poland as a Fulbright Fellow and project director for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. His book, Bondage to the Dead: Poland and the Memory of the Holocaust, examines how the experience of witnessing the Holocaust has marked Polish history and consciousness over the past half century.
Prof. Keith Weiser, the York University Silber Family Professor of Holocaust and Eastern European Jewish Studies, will serve as moderator for the event.
The Wolinsky Lectures, endowed by the Leonard Wolinsky Foundation, are sponsored by York’s Centre for Jewish Studies, the Faculty of Arts and the Faculty of Education in cooperation with the Toronto Board of Jewish Education.