Pears Foundation

Pears Foundation, based in London, England, is generously supporting News Dimensions in Testimony. Developed in collaboration with the USC Institute for Creative Technologies and Conscience Display, and supported by a consortium of committed donors, New Dimensions in Testimony (NDT) is a pioneer technology that allows visitors to engage in dialogue with photo-real projected images of Holocaust survivors.

Masako Togo Kasloff

Masako Togo Kasloff and her late husband Philip were drawn to the USC Shoah Foundation Institute after hearing the testimony of Dario Gabbai, who was forced to work as a Sonderkommando at Auschwitz during the Holocaust.

Louis Smith

Hearing Holocaust survivors tell their stories in person is a powerful experience — and one that Next Generation Council member Louis Smith worried would soon be lost forever. So when he learned about New Dimensions in Testimony, a project of USC Shoah Foundation — The Institute for Visual History and Education, he wanted to give to help realize its potential.

Lee Liberman

Lee Liberman has been a stalwart supporter of USC Shoah Foundation –The Institute for Visual History and Education since 1999 and a member of the Board of Councilors since 2007. A resident of Melbourne, Australia, Liberman is a dedicated philanthropist with charitable interests that extend to Israel, the United States and Africa.

Koret Foundation

The Koret Foundation in San Francisco awarded a $1 million matching grant supporting a project that is a model for the preservation of Holocaust testimony around the world. The Institute partnered with the Jewish Family and Children’s Services Holocaust Center to digitize and preserve the Center’s videotaped Bay Area testimonies.

Judy and Mark Alpert

Dr. Judy Alpert is the child of Holocaust survivors. Judy was born in Hungary in 1946, after her parents were liberated from concentration camps. When she was 10, she and her parents escaped to the United States from Budapest during the 1956 revolution. Her husband, Mark, was born during World War II and is acutely aware that if he had been born where his grandparents fled the pogroms in the late 19th century, he would have not survived the Holocaust.

In Memoriam: Sharon Gillerman


We are very saddened to learn of the passing of our dear friend and valued colleague Dr. Sharon Gillerman on November 20, 2020, at the age of 60.  

Sharon was a scholar in Jewish history on faculty at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC) and at USC for more than 20 years. Her scholarship focused on modern German and central European Jewish history with a particular interest in gender history, cultural studies, popular culture, and transnational history.   

Countering Hate: FBI Report Highlights Need for Concerted Response to Hate Crimes


A new FBI report says hate crimes increased dramatically last year by the highest margin since 2008.

Antisemitic hate crimes rose by 14 percent with a total of 953 hate crimes recorded against Jews and Jewish institutions. Reported incidents of assault, vandalism and harassment included a white supremacist shooting at a Chabad center in Poway, California, a shooting in Jersey City, New Jersey, and a stabbing in Monsey, New York.

USC Shoah Foundation

Carolann S. Najarian

Carolann S. Najarian, M.D., was drawn to USC Shoah Foundation — The Institute for Visual History and Education through her involvement with the Armenian Film Foundation.