In observance of both Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and Holocaust Remembrance Day, this week's middle school WEEL was a multi-cultural exploration of tolerance and acceptance.

We began our journey with lunch at Shanghai Diamond, a kosher Chinese restaurant in the Pico-Robertson area of Los Angeles. We then proceeded to the Museum of Tolerance, a facility which uses interactive technologies and hands-on exhibits to explore historical and contemporary problems of intolerance, prejudice, and violence. The exhibits we visited included a video wall detailing the American Civil Rights movement, and the Point of View Diner, which simulates a 1950's lunch counter while focusing on issues of personal responsibility in the areas of bullying, drunk driving, and hate speech. Other exhibits reveal recent and ongoing human rights abuses and engage the students in finding ways to combat these problems. Of particular interest was the exhibit "GlobalHate.com" which revealed the proliferation of hate-speech on the internet and introduced questions for critical thinking in a media saturated society.  We also had the amazing opportunity to hear from a Holocaust survivor, Eileen Geller.  The following is just a piece of her story...

Eileen Geller was 4 years old when the war reached her hometown in Poland.  Her first memory she can recall occurred on the day her town was captured.  Her father had arranged for her to live with a Christian family and she had been studying children's stories from a seminary student.  On the day the Nazis arrived, her father dressed her in as many layers of clothing as he possibly could because it would look suspicious if she had a suitcase.  Eileen Geller remembers wearing all of her clothes to the point that she was unable to put her arms by her side.  While there were children who were saved by Righteous Gentiles hiding children in their homes as their own, Eileen Geller did not make it to the home she was to be hidden in.  Her father quickly changed his mind when he noticed families sending children out to the Nazi soldiers saying that the children had wandered into their homes and they do not know those children.  The outcome was not desirable, so Eileen's father decided to keep Eileen with him.  Eileen was quickly separated from her father and her brothers, but stayed with her aunt for the remainder of the war.  Eileen experienced several different concentration camps and was eventually liberated from Bergen-Belsen in 1946.  She made her way to the United States with her family that had survived, and began kindergarten at a Jewish Day School.  She aspired to be an actress and continued on to a performing arts high school in New York.

We will continue, in middle school, to examine the importance and value of tolerance and acceptance, particularly as it relates to us, our school, our community, the Jewish people, and the world at large.

This program was made possible by support from the Jewish Federation of the Greater San Gabriel and Pomona Valleys.