About Us

Dr. Lori Weintrob, Director, Wagner College Holocaust Center

Dr. Lori Weintrob is Professor of History and founding director of the Wagner College Holocaust Center, Staten Island, New York. She teaches Nazi Germany and the Holocaust and the Holocaust in Film, Theater and the Arts. Lori has connected Holocaust survivors with thousands of youth of all faiths in the tri-state area. She is co-editor of Beyond Bystanders: Educational Leadership for a Human Culture in a Globalizing Reality (2017) and Maternalism Reconsidered: Motherhood, Welfare and Social Policy in the Twentieth Century (2012). She is co-author of the original play Rise Up: Young Holocaust Heroes. Recent presentations include “Thou Shalt not be a bystander: Holocaust Education for Empathy, Ethics and Courage,” at Kibbutzim College of Education and “Heroines of the Holocaust: Vitka Kempner-Kovner and Sara Ginaite” for the Museum of Jewish Heritage. She is currently editing Eyewitness to History: Documents of the Holocaust (ABC-CLIO Press) and completing a project on Zivia Lubetkin and other female resistance leaders. She has received awards for community-building and interfaith social justice activism, including with African-American and African Youth, the Albanian-Islamic Cultural Center and the Pride Center of Staten Island. She was fortunate to have studied the Holocaust with Saul Friedlander. Lori received her B.A. from Princeton University and her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

Dr. Laura Morowitz, Senior Programming and Research Associate

Dr. Laura Morowitz is Professor of Art History at Wagner College, and Senior Research and Programming Associate of the Wagner College Holocaust Center. She teaches Art and Aesthetics in the Third Reich and, with Dr. Steve Snow, Origins, Holocaust History and Contemporary Crises: Israel and Palestine. In 2019 she and Dr. Weintrob designed and curated the Center’s Education and Action Gallery. She is the author of five books. In 2011 she received a Hadassah Brandeis Research Institute Award for her work on a book dealing with Klimt’s confiscated Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer. Her book, Art, Exhibition and Erasure in Nazi Vienna, for which she was awarded an NEH summer stipend in 2017 , was published by Routledge Press, Art and Politics Series, in 2023. She contributed the chapter on Art and the Holocaust to Sources for Studying the Holocaust:A Guide for Students, edited by Paul Bartrop (Routledge, 2022). Laura’s scholarly articles have been published in The Journal of Holocaust Studies, Contemporary Austrian Studies, The Austrian History Yearbook, The Art Bulletin, Art Journal, The Oxford Art Journal, The Journal of the History of Collections, The Journal of Popular Film and Television and Cultural Critique among other places. Current projects include articles on the racialized landscape in Nazi Vienna and the “erased Jewess” in the works of the Austrian artist Hans Makart.

Ruth Kupperberg, Solidarity Fellow of the Wagner College Holocaust Center, NYC Human Rights Commission and Mayor’s Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes

Ruth Kupperberg is a proud alum of Wagner College, where she majored in Theater Performance and minored in Holocaust and Human Rights Studies. She currently is the Wagner College Solidarity Fellow for the New York City Commission on Human Rights, where she is building educational presentations on antisemitism and the Jewish identity in NYC. Past positions for Wagner include: Holocaust Center Intern, Education Assistant and Conference Coordinator. Ruth continues to pursue her passion for theater and performance alongside her work promoting Holocaust education.

Wagner College Holocaust Center

Our mission is to empower future generations in empathy, courage, and ethical decision-making in order to combat anti-Semitism, racism & all forms of prejudice.

Wagner College Holocaust Center Advisory Board: Vision Statement

The Board supports a flourishing and exciting celebration of Jewish life, culture, faith and learning on the Wagner College campus. It will encourage the development of academic studies and co-curricular activities on Judaism, Jews in American Society, Israel and the Holocaust. It will work to stimulate students to engage in an open community of study and self-discovery that will help them to become passionate, informed Jewish leaders on campus, in their communities and after their time in college.

WCHC Advisory Board: Mission Statement

The mission of the Wagner College Chai Society is to strengthen the ties between Wagner College and the Jewish Community through support of academic studies and co-curricular activities on Judaism, Israel and the Holocaust; to support a vibrant Holocaust Center, Hillel and other programs; and to educate continuing generations on the ramifications of prejudice, anti-Semitism and racism in order to promote openness to all.

WCHC Advisory Board

Chair:

Fern Zagor

Members:

Dr. Victor and Kim Avis
Louis Bruschi
Jay Duskin
Bethany Friedman
Stephen Greenwald
Rabbi Michael Howald
Sadie Khodorkovsky Koyfman
Marcia Klein
Michelle Lee
Dr. Ram Roth
Scott Salmon
Eric Schuffler
Judge Marjorie Steinberg
Nancy Tricorico
Rev. Terry Troia
Judge Karen Wolff
Amelia Winter

Faculty Advisory Committee:

Dr. Laura Morowitz, PhD
Dr. Lori Weintrob, PhD

Wagner College Hillel Mission Statement:

Wagner College Hillel is part of Hillel of Staten Island, which is run through a management agreement with the Joan & Alan Bernikow JCC of Staten Island. This management agreement has created a new, first of its kind model of one Hillel that serves both Wagner and the College of Staten Island, as well as other college-aged students and young professionals. The funding for this initiative comes from UJA-Federation of NY, a core partner of the JCC and Hillel.

For more information visit:

hillelstatenisland.com