ZOA AROUND THE COUNTRY to combat hatred. The program is carried out in cooperation with the Board of Education of the Pittsburgh Public Schools and the city of Pittsburgh. The program focuses on the events of the Holocaust to teach young people, during their most impressionable years, about the horrific consequences of hatred and examples of man’s inhumanity to man. Teaching students to reject intolerance and those who foment it, the program also fosters an attitude of understanding and respect for those whose beliefs may differ from their own. The Tolerance Education Program was created by Dr. Zalman Shapiro, z”l, and is directed primarily at 10th grade students who are learning about the Holocaust in their social studies and/ or history classes. Though the students learn about the Holocaust as part of the regular school curriculum, what they hear in class is generally presented as just another historical event and soon fades from their memories. But when they go through the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM)—where they see the actual consequences of religious, ethnic, and racial hatred in videos, photos, and other exhibits— most students are left with an indelible realization of the dangers of bigotry. Each year, 11 motor coaches transport over 500 students to the USHMM in Washington, D.C. After they return, students participate in an essay contest, and modest monetary prizes are awarded to students with winning essays. Since the program’s 40 inception in 1999, ZOA Pittsburgh has taken 6,000 students to the USHMM. These are the 2017 essay winners, with excerpts from their essays. FIRST PLACE: JADA WOOD, CREATIVE AND PERFORMING ARTS HIGH SCHOOL (CAPA) “Walking through the museum made the biggest impact on my thoughts and views on the Holocaust. I realized that the Holocaust was even worse than it was ever portrayed in any sources that I previously viewed.” SECOND PLACE: SEAD NIKSIC, OBAMA ACADEMY “While the surrounding politics were necessary to understand, the third floor down captured the true suffering of the Jewish people in all of its twisted, heartbreaking agony…. Nor will my memory erase the countless other inhumane monstrous actions of the Nazis at the expense of an innocent people.” A survivor shows students his tattooed arm at the National Holocaust Memorial Museum Pittsburgh students at the National Holocaust Memorial Museum Since the program’s inception in 1999, ZOA Pittsburgh has taken 6,000 students to the Holocaust Museum.
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