One-man Holocaust play goes online to teach a new generation – The Jewish News of Northern California
Posted By admin on January 22, 2021
Roger Grunwald was on a roll. For years, he had been touring the globe with his Holocaust-themed, one-man, multiple-character play, performing it at synagogues throughout North America, Israel and the U.K. and at universities such as Oxford, Penn State and Ben-Gurion.
But right when he was all set to take the expanded versionof that play on a major 2020 tour, the pandemic hit and Grunwald had to quickly rethink his career strategy.
The gist of his new plan? Goodbye live theater, hello Zoom.
For several months, the San Francisco native has been offering a program called The Mitzvah Project to high schools. This new online version includes a filmed version of his one-man play, The Mitzvah, as a jumping-off point to teach teens about the Holocaust. Hell be presenting the project to schools in Marin, Contra Costa and Santa Clara counties at various dates in January and February, scheduled around International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Jan. 27.
So far the response has been very strong from educators and students, said the experienced actor-playwright, who had a role a few years ago in the pilot episode of Vinyl on HBO, which was directed by Martin Scorsese. Yes, they get a visceral experience [when The Mitzvah is performed live] that they might not get in the same way seeing the video. But from the response, they seem to be impacted.
Nancy Grabow, the German-language teacher at Walnut Creeks Northgate High School, hopes students at her school will be among them. Grunwald will present The Mitzvah Project to her students, along with drama and European history students, on Feb.3.
I jumped at the chance, she said of Grunwalds presentation. We have to learn from history or were going to make the same mistakes.
The son of an Auschwitz survivor, Grunwald co-wrote the play with Annie McGreevy. It tells the fictional story of a Nazi military officer who had a Jewish mother (yes, Hitler did allow some mischlings the offspring of a Jewish and an Aryan parent into the Wehrmacht) and a Jewish concentration camp prisoner, and how fate brought them together. There is also a Groucho Marx-like character, who serves as a sideline commentator on the events. Grunwald performs all the roles, switching seamlessly from one character to another.
The play (in-person or online) is almost always followed by a lecture and Q&A session, aka The Mitzvah Project.
Woven throughout are words such as mitzvah and other details that not every teenager of today is going to understand.
Grunwald tackled that problem by creating a study guide that is given to students ahead of time. It presents an overview of the Holocaust, who the Nazis were, what Auschwitz was and how genocide was effected under Hitler.
I have to accept the fact that there are young people for whom this goes right over their heads, he said of the complex subject matter. But there is some value in seeing something they hadnt been exposed to before. Out of 100 students, if there are 20 who get a significant experience or even one Ive accomplished something.
Born in San Francisco and a 1969 graduate of Lick-Wilmerding High School in the city, Grunwald grew up hearing his mothers stories of her girlhood in Frankfurt, the rise of Hitler and her deportation to Auschwitz, where she clung to life for two years before liberation. In later years, his mother was active in Holocaust education, doing her part to make sure something like that never happened again.
Meanwhile, after graduating from UC Berkeley, Grunwald had moved to New York to launch his acting career and to do community organizing on the side, especially on behalf of New York Citys most vulnerable populations. He went on to become a theater, film, TV and voice actor, and has appeared in more than 70 stage productions in the United States and Europe, according to his website.
After reading Bryan Mark Riggs 2002 book Hitlers Jewish Soldiers, which recounts the little-known history of Germans with partial Jewish ancestry serving in the Nazi army, he had found a topic for a play. And if the matter seemed urgent then, perhaps its even more so now, with at least one recent study showing that two-thirds of millennials do not know what Auschwitz was.
In light of the Jan. 6 right-wing insurgence at the Capitol, Grunwald sees the lessons of the Holocaust as more urgent than ever. With blatant hatred of Jews on display among some in the pro-Trump mob, and the use of plenty of white-supremacist symbols (such as the Confederate flag), the siege, some would say attempted coup, was a warning that the hatred that fueled the Holocaust is still alive.
The message of the play is there is no other, he said. The other is us. Lying never was more widespread, shameless, systematic and constant than it is today. Lies dont even need to be plausible to work. Its part and parcel of the Eurocentric big lie that brought about Holocaust denial and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Our democracy, for all its robustness in 200-plus years of existence, isnt invulnerable, as we have just seen.
See the original post here:
- Utah rabbi says Holocaust education resolution is 'justified and necessary' as denial increases - KSL.com - March 3rd, 2021
- Utah Rabbi says resolution emphasizing Holocaust education is 'justified and necessary' as denial increases - KSL.com - March 3rd, 2021
- This is a sign of how much trouble the GOP brand is in - KCTV Kansas City - February 26th, 2021
- Government urged to close loophole that allows extremists to radicalise others - Sky News - February 26th, 2021
- Reckoning with a Nazi Father - The New Yorker - February 16th, 2021
- In the Wake of Holocaust Remembrance Week, A Mitzvah - The Times of Israel - February 16th, 2021
- Opinion | On human rights, Amazon is at a crossroads - Crosscut - February 9th, 2021
- Taking Action to Repair Our World - IDN InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters - February 7th, 2021
- Opinion: QAnon, conspiracy theories are no joke - DW (English) - February 7th, 2021
- The Wall Street Journal Misreads Section 230 and the First Amendment - Lawfare - February 3rd, 2021
- 'Misha and the Wolves' is a stranger-than-fiction documentary about a woman's Holocaust story - USA TODAY - February 1st, 2021
- Facebook still has Holocaust denial content three months after Mark Zuckerberg pledged to remove it - USA TODAY - February 1st, 2021
- UN experts urge renewed commitment to combat antisemitism, including Holocaust distortion and denial - YubaNet - February 1st, 2021
- The Holocaust, history and today's politics - The CT Mirror - February 1st, 2021
- On this remembrance day, lessons of the Holocaust take on new urgency - Bangor Daily News - February 1st, 2021
- ADL social media Holocaust denial report card: C's and D's all around - The Jewish News of Northern California - February 1st, 2021
- Antisemitism and Holocaust denial on the rise in Australia, Josh Frydenberg warns - The Guardian - February 1st, 2021
- PaleyIMPACT: The Medias Role in Combating Holocaust Denial, Misinformation, and Antisemitism - Yahoo Entertainment - February 1st, 2021
- Abraham Accords the turning point for Arabic Holocaust education -opinion - The Jerusalem Post - February 1st, 2021
- Coronavirus conspiracy theories could be a fast-track to Holocaust denial - The Independent - February 1st, 2021
- The Conversation - Indonesia (via the Good Men Project) featured Dyson Professor Adam Klein's column "How To Fight Holocaust Denial in Social... - January 22nd, 2021
- AJC, FBI Meet to Discuss Efforts to Combat Antisemitism in the US - PRNewswire - January 22nd, 2021
- WJC and ADL Call on Tech Companies to Enforce Policies Banning Antisemitic and Hate Products - YubaNet - January 22nd, 2021
- 'The White Voice, Experience, and Interest Dominate Education' (Opinion) - Education Week - January 22nd, 2021
- How should we remember the Holocaust? - New Statesman - January 22nd, 2021
- Why are people fighting the IHRA definition of antisemitism? - The Jerusalem Post - January 22nd, 2021
- Pure hate finds a home: How Parler became the social media platform for millions of Trump supporters - Milwaukee Independent - January 4th, 2021
- Activists call on Facebook and Twitter to ban Armenian genocide denial - Business Insider - Business Insider - January 1st, 2021
- My Turn: What will we bear witness to as truth as we head into 2021? - The Recorder - December 30th, 2020
- Lipstadt and Eisen sign on to roster of those who minimize the Holocaust - JNS.org - December 30th, 2020
- Book: Intent to deceive: Denying the Genocide of the Tutsi | ICN - Independent Catholic News - December 27th, 2020
- Takoma Park Mayor Releases Statement on Recent Incidents - Source of the Spring - December 27th, 2020
- Facebook overhauling hate speech algorithms to prioritize anti-Black, anti-LGBTQ comments over anti-white - WDHN - DothanFirst.com - December 12th, 2020
- Noam Chomsky and the Left: Allies or Strange Bedfellows? - The Wire - December 12th, 2020
- What the Facebook antitrust lawsuits might mean for hate speech - Forward - December 12th, 2020
- All I want for Hanukkah are these 8 human rights wishes - opinion - The Jerusalem Post - December 12th, 2020
- 'The Tehran Children: Iran's Unexpected & Suppressed Connection to the Holocaust' program set - timesobserver.com - December 5th, 2020
- Facebook's Updating its Approach to Hate Speech to Combat 'The Worst of the Worst' Cases - Social Media Today - December 5th, 2020
- Yes, Palestinians have the right to speak about antisemitism - Forward - December 5th, 2020
- How to fight Holocaust denial in social media with the evidence of what really happened - The Conversation US - December 4th, 2020
- Chautauqua Institution joins Holocaust Memorial Museum for 'The Tehran Children' - Olean Times Herald - December 4th, 2020
- Twitter, Facebook to update hate speech moderation | TheHill - The Hill - December 4th, 2020
- Publishers are not obliged to give bigots like Jordan Peterson a platform - The Guardian - December 4th, 2020
- Facebook said It would ban holocaust deniers. Instead, its algorithm provided a network for them - The Next Web - December 1st, 2020
- Facebook banned Holocaust denial but it's still easy to find - The Jewish News of Northern California - December 1st, 2020
- Facebook's ban has done little to rid the platform of Holocaust denial - Haaretz.com - December 1st, 2020
- Fury as Amazon Alexa spreading antisemitic conspiracies that Jews run the world and Holocaust denial - The Sun - December 1st, 2020
- Facebook announced It would prohibit holocaust deniers. Rather, its algorithm donated a network for them - Stanford Arts Review - December 1st, 2020
- Gen Z's Perception of the Holocaust | Eli Yissar Josefson | The Blogs - The Times of Israel - December 1st, 2020
- Palestinian rights and the IHRA definition of antisemitism - The Guardian - December 1st, 2020
- 'Facebook needs to improve': Social media giant to face scrutiny as backlash intensifies - Sydney Morning Herald - December 1st, 2020
- Forum: Europe needs proper distinction between freedom and rights - The Straits Times - December 1st, 2020
- Parler is bringing together mainstream conservatives, anti-Semites, and white supremacists as the social media platform attracts millions of Trump... - December 1st, 2020
- The Meaning of Hitler Review: A Look At Why the Icon of 20th-Century Hate Lives on in the 21st - Variety - December 1st, 2020
- Muslims v the west, in France and beyond - newagebd.net - December 1st, 2020
- Six weeks ago, Facebook announced a ban on Holocaust denial. It's still easy to find. - Cleveland Jewish News - November 25th, 2020
- Opinion: Nazi resistance fighters, Holocaust victims and the nonsense of COVID-19 denial - DW (English) - November 25th, 2020
- MPs demand Amazon explain why Alexa 'offers messages from antisemitic websites and conspiracy theories' - Sky News - November 25th, 2020
- In the first-ever expulsion, Lord Nazir Ahmed forced to quit from House of Lords - India New England - November 25th, 2020
- Yad Vashem is selling its soul to shady right-wing racists and populists - Haaretz.com - November 25th, 2020
- How David Adjaye Became the Worlds Most Beguiling Public Architectand Its Most Subversive - Robb Report - November 25th, 2020
- The Impact of Toxicity on Retention and LTV. - Gamasutra - November 25th, 2020
- Wiesenthal Center warns about Parler opening 'the door wide' to anti-Semitism - JNS.org - November 25th, 2020
- For 75th Anniversary of Nuremberg Trials, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Makes Available Full Sound Recordings of Trials and Film Used as... - November 21st, 2020
- EmTech Stage: Facebooks CTO on misinformation - MIT Technology Review - November 21st, 2020
- Wiesenthal Center warns about Parler opening the door wide to anti-Semitism - Cleveland Jewish News - November 21st, 2020
- A former right-wing media creator on how a different reality became so prominent. - The New York Times - November 21st, 2020
- Checking in with chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov - Jewish Insider - November 21st, 2020
- US elections and Jewish vote: Priorities of American Diaspora, implications for Israel - JNS.org - November 21st, 2020
- What I learned about teshuvah (and the internet) when I sat down with a repentant white supremacist - Heritage Florida Jewish News - November 21st, 2020
- Angered by Facebook and Twitter, conservatives jump to alternatives - AZFamily - November 21st, 2020
- Hungary Now Safest Place in Europe for Jews - Rabbi Kves at the Hungary at First 'Site' Conference - Hungary Today - November 21st, 2020
- The Latest: Romney slams Trump efforts to overturn election as 'undemocratic' - pressherald.com - November 21st, 2020
- Repressed grief is bad for the soul: Covid victims must be commemorated - Evening Standard - November 11th, 2020
- In its troubled hour, polling could use an irreverent figure to reset expectations - Huron Daily Tribune - November 11th, 2020
- Singh says government must move to counter hate groups, which have tripled since 2015 - Kamloops This Week - November 11th, 2020
- As the Trump era comes to an end, what happens to Big Tech? - The Bozeman Daily Chronicle - November 11th, 2020
- Revered Polish Jew, Holocaust survivor joins protests over top appointment at Yad Vashem - Haaretz.com - November 9th, 2020
- After The Defeat Of Donald Trump, Sacha Baron Cohen Turns His Attention To Mark Zuckerberg - Forbes - November 9th, 2020
- Cambridge University agrees to International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition of antisemitism - In Your Area - November 9th, 2020
Comments