The Holocaust, Genocide and Interfaith (HGI) Education Center at Manhattan College will host three events during the fall semester, focusing on recent history, beginning with World War II and continuing to present-day New York City.
All events are free and open to the public:
- Wednesday, Sept. 9, 5:30 p.m.: Peter B. Gudaitis, president of the National Disaster Interfaith Networks, will lead a discussion on the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, whole community doctrine and rebuilding the interfaith movement. Gudaitis works to provide disaster readiness, response and recovery services to New York City and has more than 25 years of experience in chaplaincy, emergency management and faith-based philanthropy.
- Wednesday, Oct. 7, 7:30 p.m.: Perry Rizopoulos ’13, a philosophy major who was the undergraduate valedictorian of his class, will discuss his grandfather’s escape from Nazi-occupied Greece as a teenager during World War II. A member of Phi Beta Kappa, Rizopoulos is planning to release Wheat Song in 2016, a nonfiction work detailing his grandfather’s journey from Greece to the Bronx.
- Monday, Nov. 16, 7 p.m.: Marion Kaplan, Ph.D. will deliver the eighth annual Frederick M. Schweitzer Lecture, entitled Jewish Women and Families during Kristallnacht. The Skirball Professor of Modern Jewish History at New York University, Kaplan’s research focuses on Jewish women’s history and the history of Jewish daily life in Germany.
Founded in 1996, the HGI Center is committed to understanding and respecting differences and similarities between people of all religions, races, ethnicities and nationalities. For more information about the HGI Center’s events, please contact Mehnaz Afridi, at (718) 862-7284 or mehnaz.afridi@manhattan.edu.