Officially Launching the Ilona Irene Rosenschein Holocaust Education Fund at the Boulder JCC

This program is supported by the Ilona Irene Rosenschein Holocaust Education Endowment Fund (IIRHEF) at the Boulder JCC. This fund was launched in 2019 with a generous donation from Larry Cohn to honor Irene and her contribution to Holocaust education in the Boulder Community. We will begin our program with a tribute to Irene by her family and community members. A short film will be shown, including Irene’s testimony to the Shoah Foundation. If you would like to support the IIRHEF, you can make a donation on the JCC’s main donation page. Please indicate in the notes that it is for this fund.

Ariel Burger, author of the National Jewish Book Award Winning “Witness: Lessons from Elie Wiesel’s Classroom,” will speak on Sunday, September 13 at 4:00 pm MT via Zoom. The program is free but advance registration is required.

The world remembers Elie Wiesel—Nobel laureate, activist, and author of more than forty books—as a great humanist. He passed away in July 2016. Ariel Burger first met Elie Wiesel at age fifteen. They studied and taught together. “Witness” chronicles the intimate conversations between these two men over decades, as Burger sought counsel on matters of intellect, spirituality, and faith, while navigating his own personal journey from boyhood to manhood, from student and assistant to rabbi and, in time, teacher. Ariel received his PhD in Jewish Studies and Conflict Resolution under Elie Wiesel. A lifelong student of Professor Wiesel, Ariel served as his Teaching Fellow from 2003-2008. In this profoundly hopeful, thought-provoking, and inspiring book, Burger takes us into Elie Wiesel’s classroom, where the art of listening and storytelling conspire to keep memory alive. Hope, inspiration, and the art of listening are all things we need more of today.

Ariel Burger is the founding director and senior scholar of The Witness Institute, whose mission is to empower emerging leaders, inspired by the life and legacy of Elie Wiesel. He is an author, teacher, and artist whose work integrates spirituality, the arts, and strategies for social change. In 2019, Ariel was chosen as one of the Algemeiner’s Top 100 people positively influencing Jewish life today.

This author talk is one of many happening throughout the fall. LitFest in your Living Room will bring local, national, and international authors live to your living room through Zoom. View the full LitFest lineup.