-Moderated by NBC News’ Senior Legal and Investigative Correspondent Cynthia McFadden-
(New York, NY)—On November 18 at 3 PM ET, the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust and the Olga Lengyel Institute for Holocaust Studies and Human Rights will present “The Holocaust, Tikkun Olam, and Three Generations of Humanitarian Women,” a conversation between humanitarian Caryl Stern and her mother Manuela Stern that explores the Holocaust’s impact on three generations of women.
The conversation will be moderated by Cynthia McFadden, Senior Legal and Investigative Correspondent at NBC News.
Caryl Stern, Executive Director of The Walton Family Foundation is the third generation of women in her family whose lives have been affected by the Holocaust. Her grandmother, Mignon Langnas, was a nurse in Vienna at the time of the Nazi invasions. She sent her two children to America while she stayed to take care of her ailing parents and her patients in a Jewish children’s hospital. Langnas faced constant risk of deportation and death.
Caryl’s mother, Manuela Stern, arrived in the United States at the age of six. She spent her childhood in an orphanage in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Her childhood experiences contributed to her becoming a passionate civic activist and educator.
Growing up, Caryl often heard the stories of how her mother fled Vienna with her brother via boat accompanied by a family friend of her mother’s. She also heard stories of how her grandfather tried to escape Vienna on the S.S. St. Louis, but was turned away from safe haven in Cuba and America. From these stories, she absorbed the message that, “You can be the woman on the boat or the world watching the St. Louis.”
Caryl went on to build a career as a human rights activist. In 1987, she joined the Anti-Defamation League where she rose to become Associate National Director and founding director of its acclaimed World of Difference Institute. In 2007, Caryl was named President and CEO of the US Fund for UNICEF, mobilizing large-scale funding for needy children, refugees and disaster relief. Since 2019 she has been the Executive Director of the Walton Family Foundation, one of America’s largest philanthropies.
For all three women in this family, the spirit of tikkun olam (Hebrew for “to heal the world”) runs through their DNA.
The event is being held virtually on Thursday, November 18th at 3:00 PM. Tickets are free with a suggested $10 donation. For more information, visit https://mjhnyc.org/events/the-holocaust-tikkun-olam-and-three-generations-of-humanitarian-women/.
About The Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust
The Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust is New York’s contribution to the global responsibility to never forget. The Museum is committed to the crucial mission of educating diverse visitors about Jewish life before, during, and after the Holocaust. The third largest Holocaust museum in the world and the second largest in North America, the Museum of Jewish Heritage anchors the southernmost tip of Manhattan, completing the cultural and educational landscape it shares with the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.
The Museum of Jewish Heritage maintains a collection of almost 40,000 artifacts, photographs, documentary films, and survivor testimonies and contains classrooms, a 375-seat theater (Edmond J. Safra Hall), special exhibition galleries, a resource center for educators, and a memorial art installation, Garden of Stones, designed by internationally acclaimed sculptor Andy Goldsworthy. The Museum is the home of National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene.
The Museum’s current offerings include Boris Lurie: Nothing To Do But To Try, a first of its kind exhibition on the 20th century artist and Holocaust survivor on view through April 29, 2022, and Tovah Feldshuh in Becoming Dr. Ruth, a limited engagement through January 2, 2022.
The Museum receives general operating support from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and New York State Council on the Arts.
About The Olga Lengyel Institute for Holocaust Studies and Human Rights
The Olga Lengyel Institute (TOLI) provides professional development seminars for educators in the US and abroad that link the lessons of the Holocaust and other genocides to current world events, working with teachers to promote a human rights and social justice agenda in their classrooms.