At the beginning of June, eighteen education professors and campus administrators from colleges and universities throughout the US came to campus to participate in GW's Fellowship and Summer Institute on Antisemitism and Jewish Inclusion in Educational Settings, a comprehensive program directed by Dr. Benjamin M. Jacobs and Ilana Weltman. This year, the program also piloted a new track comprised of school district leaders, which included eight directors of social studies education, student services, and DEI officers from DCPS, Arlington Public Schools, and Montgomery County Public Schools.
Over the course of four days, fellows visited the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, learned about Jewish diversity with local Chef Vered Guttman (an Iraqi-Polish Jew from Israel) and April Powers (a/k/a, the Jewbian Princess), and met with experts on antisemitism, Jewish inclusion, Zionism and anti-Zionism, DEI, academic freedom and free speech, and other related matters. Upon completion of the Institute, they emerged with strategies for how to include Jewish issues in their instruction and student service efforts.