Lipper interns, from left, Ashley Drew, Ryne Spengler, and Ruthy Taranto are learning how to teach the Holocaust to young students at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City.
Photo courtesy Jamie Kenney
September 9, 2008
Three Monmouth County students have been chosen to participate in the Lipper Internship Program at the Museum of Jewish Heritage: A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in New York City.
Ashley Drew of Tinton Falls, Ryne Spengler of Eatontown, and Ruthy Taranto of Marlboro are among 16 college students from the northeast who are learning how to teach 20th-century Jewish history and the Holocaust. They will apply their lessons with middle school and high school students in local schools in their college communities and on visits to the museum in lower Manhattan.
Drew, Spengler, and Taranto, all 21, are in their senior year at the College of New Jersey. To begin their semester-long training, Drew and Spengler, who are history and secondary education majors, and Taranto, a history major, took part in an intensive 10-day training program Aug. 17-27. According to museum associate Jamie Kenney, through the internship, the students study the museum’s exhibitions and artifacts, learn teaching methods, hear testimony from Holocaust survivors, and attend seminars led by scholars.
When their training is complete, the three interns will teach at three public schools near their college’s Ewing campus. Each of the schools will participate in a program that includes an introductory session in the classroom, a visit to the museum, and a final classroom discussion.
Although the internship program is an intense and emotional experience, the three interns are eager to engage younger students in a dialogue about the Holocaust and the lives of those who perished and those who survived.
Taranto said that through the training, she has already been taught “to understand through the artifacts” at the museum. “The emotions that surface when looking at a child’s unfinished toy loom or personal poetry are very different from studying facts and statistics. I’m most excited for those moments in which the students realize the big picture — everything clicks.
“Maybe their own families and cultures are a world apart from what they’re seeing in the museum,” she continued. “The big message is still the same: We’re all in the same boat, so let’s help each other out.”
‘Look at the lives’
The program, which is open to students of all backgrounds, has become a source of inspiration that has touched the interns’ lives on a personal and professional level, Drew said.
“This internship is remarkable because it not only teaches about the Holocaust, but also about stereotypes, prejudice, anti-Semitism, which are central to preventing something like this from happening in the future,” said Drew. “Having not been raised in the Jewish faith, I have learned so much, not only from the artifacts, but also from each and every Lipper intern. I am excited to be able to teach through artifacts, which help students put a face on this tragedy and teach about the lives of those involved.”
And the lessons of the Holocaust, which include a study of the lives of the victims and survivors, may prevent future tragedies, Spengler said.
“Holocaust education is essential in preventing the same atrocities from happening again,” she said. “This internship is an amazing outreach program that really gets kids to understand the nature of the Holocaust, yet celebrates the life that existed before this tragedy. The most important lesson I have learned has been that we should not only look at the Holocaust in terms of death, but we should also look at the lives of the people who were killed.”
Since the Lipper program began in 1998, which was just one year after the museum opened, interns have worked with more than 5,000 students in the northeastern United States. Students of a wide range of cultural and religious backgrounds are encouraged to apply to the program and are selected after personal interviews with museum personnel and the submission of essays that detail their interest in the museum’s purpose, Kenny said.
“The museum’s three-floor core exhibition educates people of all ages and backgrounds about the rich tapestry of Jewish life over the past century — before, during, and after the Holocaust,” said Kenney. “The Lipper interns and other visitors to the museum are able to obtain a more personal view of the Holocaust, including those who lived and those who died.”
The Lipper Internship Program is made possible by a grant from the Gruss Lipper Foundation.
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