Virtual program.  Please register HERE.

In observance of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, please join this timely 65-minute virtual presentation by scholar and oral historian Marcia Jo Zerivitz.   Jewish life since 10.7.23 is no longer the same. Antisemitism has exponentially increased here in the US and globally and has become normalized, especially on college campuses, and mostly based on conspiracy theories. Florida hosts the nation’s second largest number of hate groups: 89. More than a quarter of the world thinks that everything Jews do is wrong and that all wrongs are done by Jews. Why have antisemitism and resulting hate crimes increased since the Covid pandemic and Israel-Hamas war? Antisemitism, a virus that mutates with every generation, has been the early warning signal of a society in danger over history. Why? Using degenerate artworks that demonstrate antisemitism’s genesis and tropes, Marcia Jo Zerivitz demonstrates the current situation, the historical background of antisemitism and the insidious power of imagery in communicating the agenda of hatred, including Christian roots, the Middle Ages, modern world and contemporary racist images since the Civil War covering eugenics, the klan, neo-nazis, restrictive covenants and white supremacy. This 65-minute PowerPoint presentation, created from 40 years of Zerivitz's research, includes the challenges of social media and the internet in the spread of antisemitism and actions we can take to help combat Jew-hatred that began 2,300 years ago.

Marcia Jo Zerivitz, Founding Executive Director, Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU, has been a leader in the American and Floridian Jewish communities for more than 50 years with a specific focus on museums and Florida Jewish history for the past 26 years.