Students from Touro University and Wilberforce University participated in the RISE Leadership Initiative, a program that took them to Poland to visit historical sites of hatred and genocide, including Auschwitz-Birkenau. The initiative aimed to combat division on American campuses by fostering authentic human connection through shared experiences.
The program, conceived by Jack Simony, president of the Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation, brought together Black students from Wilberforce, the oldest private historically Black university, and Jewish students from Touro, the largest university under Jewish auspices in America. The students met first in New York to engage with Holocaust survivors before traveling to Poland.
During their time in Poland, the students visited Warsaw, Treblinka, and Auschwitz-Birkenau. In Warsaw, a student from Wilberforce University experienced bias firsthand when a Polish clerk refused to place change directly into her hand. Her peers from Touro University immediately rallied around her, demonstrating solidarity. The students reflected on historical sites such as the Warsaw Ghetto and the barracks at Birkenau, where they saw remnants of the Holocaust.
One Wilberforce student remarked to her Jewish classmates at Birkenau, "I know this is personal to you. Now I too have seen and felt it and can bear witness." This sentiment underscored a key goal of the program: to enable students to understand and bear witness to each other's historical traumas.
The initiative highlighted the historical parallels and differences between the experiences of Black Americans and Jewish people. Jewish students, many with family legacies connected to the Holocaust, heard their Black peers describe the erasure of history and identity faced by enslaved Africans. The program aimed to illustrate that while their histories differ, they share common threads of suffering and resilience, echoing the 20th-century Black-Jewish alliance.
Students from both universities shared meals, engaged in conversations, and processed difficult historical contexts together. This communal grieving and learning, the organizers noted, builds a deeper understanding than any academic seminar can provide.
Looking ahead, the program plans a reciprocal visit to Ghana for the students to encounter the history and legacy of the transatlantic slave trade. This exchange emphasizes reciprocity, with Jewish students becoming guests in another people's historical memory, a central tenet of the initiative's model.
Organizers propose that this model of fostering authentic connection through shared historical encounters could serve as a powerful tool for universities struggling with campus division. They are inviting other university presidents to create similar programs that encourage students to "grieve together, eat together and walk together through streets where they may be challenged together."