Antisemitism: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
4:00 pm PDT/7:00 pm EDT/9:00 am AEST (+1)
Join Dr. Marcy Gringlas, Secretary General Hannah Lessing, Marilyn Sinclair & Viviane Teitelbaum as they discuss the historical trajectory of antisemitism.
Dr. Marcy Gringlas is co-founder and President of Seed The Dream Foundation, and the daughter of two Holocaust Survivors.. Seed the Dream Foundation grew out of their family's long-standing commitment to education. Dr. Gringlas has been a member of the USC Shoah Foundation Board of Councilors and Vice Chair of its Next Generation Council. She earned a Bachelor of Music from Indiana University, an MA from Columbia University, and a PhD in developmental psychology from Temple University. Dr. Gringlas retired as faculty in the Pediatrics Department at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She serves on the board of The Baldwin School as a member of the executive committee, and was previously on the board of the Anti-Defamation League, chairing the Bearing Witness Program; Steppingstone Scholars, Inc., chairing the Program Committee; and Children’s Crisis Treatment Center.
Hannah M. Lessing has been Secretary General of the National Fund of the Republic of Austria for Victims of National Socialism since 1995. She has also headed the General Settlement Fund since 2001 and the Fund for the Restoration of the Jewish Cemeteries in Austria since 2010 – three Funds carrying out their work in remembrance of the victims. Hannah Lessing is Co-Head of the Austrian delegation to the “International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance” (IHRA). Since March 2011, she has been Austria’s representative on the International Committee of the Auschwitz Foundation and Member of the Board of the Documentation Centre of Austrian Resistance. In 2001, as a member of the Austrian delegation headed by Ambassador Sucharipa, Hannah Lessing participated in the negotiations on compensation issues conducted by Under-Secretary of State Stuart Eizenstat, which led to the signature of the Joint Statement in Washington in 2001. Following this Agreement, the General Settlement Fund for Victims of National Socialism was established in 2001 in order to achieve a comprehensive resolution to open questions of compensation for victims of National Socialism. Established in order to express the moral responsibility of the Republic of Austria towards victims of National Socialism, the National Fund carries out a range of activities related to matters of restitution and compensation and the conveyance of historical awareness. Hannah Lessing has lectured extensively on the work of the three Funds, as well as in connection with national and international commemoration activities regarding the Holocaust.
Marilyn Sinclair is the Founder of Liberation75: Global Gathering of Holocaust Survivors, Descendants, Educators and Friends. Marilyn is the Past Chair of the Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre (Toronto), Co-Founder and past Co-Chair of the Dialogue for Descendants (D4D) initiative for children of Holocaust survivors, and past Co-Chair of UJA Federation’s Yom HaShoah Committee and is on the board of Canadian Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Descendants (CJHSD). She is also a member of the Next Generation Council of the USC Shoah Foundation and the NGC Task Force. In May 2017, she was appointed as one of two Canadian representatives to the Claims Conference Board and is a member of the Control Committee. In 2016, she chaired the first Canadian Study Group to Poland for Forum for Dialogue. She holds a B.Sc. and MA and is a graduate of the Rotman School of Management Jewish Communal Leadership program. Marilyn is CEO of All About Words and Secretariat Central. She was named one of Canada’s Top 100 Women Entrepreneurs by Profit Magazine and her company was named “Best of the Best” by Prism Magazine. She was recently awarded the BMO Celebrating Women: Community and Charitable Giving Award and the Community Volunteer Award (UJA Federation of Greater Toronto).
Viviane Teitelbaum is a member of the Regional Parliament of Brussels since 2004, where she is active in social and health affairs, environment, gender equality and the fight against racism, antisemitism, sexism, and homophobia. As former Deputy to the Mayor in the municipality of Ixelles, she was in charge of urban planning, environment, economic development, and public cleaning. In charge of finances for 5 years she has implemented the first gender budgeting in a Belgian municipality. She is the past President of the European Women’s Lobby (EWL) elected in that position from 2012 to 2016 and of the French Council of Women in Belgium that she chaired from 2010 to 2018. She is currently the cofounder and chair of the Observatory of Violence Against Women. She holds a licence in Journalism from ULB (Brussels) and a Master’s degree in International Relations, from the University of Southern California (USA). She is a writer who has published ten books (including on Antisemitism and World War II), and is co-author of different collective publications and books (including a Glossary of feminism).
