Legacy of Light Goldberg Institute for Holocaust Education Launches Academy of Critical Thinkers and SHOAH Collaborative

With the new rapidly approaching, Jewish Federation of San Diego’s Holocaust education initiatives have begun to kick into full gear. As part of the Legacy of Light Goldberg Institute for Holocaust Education, Holocaust Education Senior Manager, Jessica Kretzer, has formally launched the Academy of Critical Thinkers as well as continued the educational training of the SHOAH Collaborative.  

Both initiatives are set to transform Holocaust education in San Diego and bring it into the modern era along with the other major pillars of the Goldberg Institute.  

ACADEMY OF CRITICAL THINKERS Formally Launched 

The Academy of Critical Thinkers (ACT) was recently formally launched with a program breakfast and meeting of several participating educators. With the professional development officially started, the ACT program promises to strengthen critical thinking teaching skills as well as Holocaust education in San Diego.  

The inaugural cohort of ACT has brought together 20 outstanding educators from five San Diego County school districts for the 2025–26 academic year. This year-long professional learning experience is designed to deepen historical understanding, strengthen teaching practice, and foster collaboration among high school teachers. 

To kick off the learning journey, ACT hosted a welcome breakfast for the new cohort. The breakfast included not only teachers, but also administrators, district representatives, superintendents, board members, and major donors who have made the ACT program possible. The breakfast set a celebratory tone for the year ahead and highlighted how meaningful these educators’ participation is to our schools, districts, and community. 

SHOAH Collaborative Meets for Training with LA Holocaust Museum 

The SHOAH Collaborative recently met at the La Jolla Riford Library for a training by Sarah Klein from the LA Holocaust Museum.  The participating educators were also presented with a copy of “Two Who Survived: Keeping Hope Alive While Surviving the Holocaust” by Rose and Max Schindler.

Sarah Klein instructed the educators on the importance of: 

• Sound pedagogy (safely in, safely out) 
• Artifacts 
• Personalization  

By ensuring a student-first approach that emphasizes learning approaches that resonate, young students will be able to better retain information and better connect with those in the past. Personal testimony and stories are key to students connecting the emotions felt by those who lived during the Holocaust. Artifacts connect students physically as they can literally touch history and receive sensory feedback.  

To this end, Sarah Klein also touched on the necessity of fostering empathy and forming intergenerational emotional connections by using survivor stories to bring abstract numbers and events to life. Klein also iterated that Holocaust education should never be about comparison, whether it be comparing human suffering, death tolls, or even contemporary life to life then.  

Instead, Holocaust education, when connecting to the present day, should be rooted in studying patterns of hate and extremism, as well as focusing on common themes such as dehumanization and universal human emotions. That way, students may think about the warning signs themselves, without being told which connections to make. 

The Future of Holocaust Education 

The Academy of Critical Thinkers meeting and the SHOAH Collaborative training session are both watershed moments for Holocaust education in San Diego County. These are both set to modernize Holocaust education in San Diego and serve as a bedrock for further improvements and overhauls to education that counters hate and antisemitism and expands empathy and compassion.