JFCS Holocaust Center

08/11/2026

Antisemitism in schools is surging. The last Holocaust survivors are aging. And the next generation must be ready to carry these lessons forward.

Our Director Morgan Blum Schneider joins Dorothy Stuehmke on the Do Good on Purpose Podcast 🎙️

A conversation about Holocaust education, moral courage, and why history belongs to all of us.

🔜 Episode drops August 12.

08/04/2026

A Holocaust survivor sat in the audience at Ulysses S. Grant High School, and most students didn't know it until after the show.

That's the kind of moment SURVIVORS, a touring theatrical production from Survivors - Arts for Change creates. In a new guest post on our blog, Principal Rebecca McMurrin shares how the performance brought testimony, theater, and dialogue together for her students, and why it resonated so strongly at a school with a significant Armenian student population, many with family ties to survivors of the 1915 Armenian Genocide.

As firsthand testimony becomes rarer, experiences like this one matter more than ever.

Read the full post on the California Teachers Collaborative blog (link in bio).

07/21/2026

We're proud to partner with Jewish Film Institute as a community partner for the world premiere of I Don't Know What I'm Doing Here at the 46th San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

Guided by her grandmother’s unmarked photographs, an American college student journeys through Romania, searching for the village her family once called home.

📅 Fri, July 24 | 6:00pm | JCCSF (Stick around after for a community shabbat!)
📅 Sat, July 25 | 12:30pm | Roxie Theater

Jacob Pincus, Madeline "Mima" Kohn, and producer Charlie McCollum are expected to attend both.

🎟️ Explore the full festival lineup at SFJFF.org and use code JFCSSFJFF46 to save on tickets.

07/14/2026

We're proud to partner with Jewish Film Institute as a community partner for The Lonely Child at the 46th San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

Inspired by a haunting Yiddish lullaby written during the Holocaust, The Lonely Child follows the daughter of the child in the song as she traces its remarkable journey across generations—revealing how memory, music, and storytelling can preserve history and connect us across time.

Join us in experiencing this powerful film and the conversations it inspires.

🎟️ Explore the full festival lineup at SFJFF.org and use code JFCSSFJFF46 to save on tickets.

07/09/2026

Children are often remembered as the Holocaust's most vulnerable victims. But they also navigated impossible choices, adapted to unimaginable circumstances, and found ways to survive.

This thought-provoking article explores what "agency" meant for Jewish children during the Holocaust, challenging us to see them not only as victims, but as individuals whose courage and resilience shaped their own survival.

These ideas come to life in *Among Neighbors*, where Holocaust survivor Yaacov Goldstein shares his experience of surviving as a young boy during and after the war. His testimony offers a deeply personal perspective on the impossible decisions children faced, and the extraordinary strength they found to endure.

Read the article, then experience Yaacov's story in Among Neighbors

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/rethinking-childrens-agency-in-the-holocaust/

07/03/2026

Among Neighbors is the most-awarded Jewish film of the year—and the streak continues.

Directed by filmmaker Yoav Potash and co-produced by JFCS Executive Director Dr. Anita Friedman, the film has just received the 2026 Jewish Film Award for Best Holocaust Film from the Jewish Film Festival Network.

Witness history like never before. Now streaming on Apple TV and Amazon Prime Video.

07/02/2026

"Antisocial." "Career criminal." "Jew." These are the labels stamped on the documents of Fredy Lewin—a young gay Jewish man arrested in N**i Germany in June 1938 and sent to Buchenwald concentration camp, one of an estimated 2,500 men swept up that summer under the regime's "Operation Work-shy."

Fredy's mother eventually bribed a guard to secure his release. He fled to Shanghai, where he took up tailoring—a trade he carried with him to San Francisco in 1948. He spent decades running his own dressmaking shop in the city until his death in 1995.

His passport, issued after his release, is preserved in the JFCS Holocaust Center's Tauber Holocaust Library and Archives, which is home to more than 13,000 volumes, over 2,000 recorded oral histories, and countless rare artifacts documenting the Holocaust.

Read the full story on the JFCS Holocaust Center blog.

In spring 1938, the N**i government inaugurated “Aktion Arbeitscheu Reich” (Operation Work-shy): calling for mass arrests of people deemed by the regime to be “asocial,” a broad category that included vagrants, mendicants, alcoholics, Sinti and Roma, and, often, g**s. The campaign began in A...

06/12/2026

Today, on what would have been Anne Frank’s 97th birthday, we remember a young Jewish girl whose voice continues to resonate across generations.

Anne Frank’s diary offers a deeply personal window into the lives of Jews during the Holocaust. Through her words, we encounter not only the dangers and injustices she faced, but also her curiosity, resilience, and hopes for the future.

For many young people, Anne’s story is their first introduction to the Holocaust. Her diary reminds us that history is not only about events—it is about people, families, communities, and lives interrupted by hatred.

As we honor Anne’s memory, we reaffirm the importance of Holocaust education that fosters understanding, combats antisemitism, and helps young people recognize their responsibility to build a more just and compassionate world.

May Anne’s voice continue to inspire learning, reflection, and action.

05/28/2026

This Pride Month, join the JFCS Holocaust Center and Keshet for an evening honoring the lives and resilience of LGBTQIA+ individuals targeted under N**i persecution. In conversation with Ron Glait, author Alexis Herr will explore stories of identity, resistance, and survival, followed by a rare opportunity to view archival materials from the Tauber Library and Archive.

Register here: https://holocaustcenter.jfcs.org/turning-pages-bearing-witness/

05/24/2026

Among Neighbors has won a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award from the Robert & Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Center () 🌟

Launched in 1969, the RFK Journalism Awards honor media professionals whose work explores issues of human rights, social justice, and the power of individual action.

Among Neighbors is the most awarded Jewish film of the year and has now received its most prestigious honor to date, shared by filmmaker Yoav Potash and executive producer Anita Friedman.

In an era of rising antisemitism, this recognition affirms what audiences around the world have been saying: this story matters. One witness can change history.

Now streaming on and .