EDI Teaching and Learning Opportunity: Holocaust Survivors Stories Featured in New Museum at Kingston Synagogue

With a key recommendation of SLC’s EDI task force report to “Foster EDI Excellence and Innovation in Teaching, Learning, and Research,” a new resource has opened to learn about local Holocaust survivors who made their home in Kingston after World War II, and to learn more about Kingston’s Jewish community.  

The museum, called L’dor Vador: From Generation to Generation, the Holocaust Museum and Education Centre, officially opened last Sunday and includes 10 large family trees and corresponding plaques telling the stories of 10 survivors, only one of whom is still alive today. The exhibit also includes a video explaining how the exhibit came to be, and how the survivors were welcomed in Kingston in the post-war period.  

Holocaust denial and antisemitic incidents have risen 58.8% since 2017, according to B’nai Brith Canada, and in Kingston, antisemitic graffiti has been found on downtown businesses, and on a Queen’s campus residence, directly targeting and threatening Jewish students.  

In an article from the Kingston Whig Standard, Rabbi Erin Polansky said the synagogue wants to welcome members of the public to the new museum exhibit to help raise awareness and educate the community. 

“Education is key to combating hatred and antisemitism, which is obviously our main concern, especially right now as it’s on the rise.” 

Read the full article here. 

For more information on antisemitism visit: https://www.ushmm.org/antisemitism/what-is-antisemitism/explained