On Thursday, the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum announced the grant recipients from the 2021 fall funding cycle for the Rubin and Gloria Feldman Family Educational Institute. 

This year’s recipients include:  

Chabad of Greater St. Louis ($1,500) – A Jewish, educational, outreach, and social service organization, Chabad has served the broader St. Louis Jewish community for nearly four decades. This grant will allow the organization to cover the expenses of creating a survivor’s testimony to be used for educational and archival purposes.  

Maryville University ($5,000) – One of the outstanding private universities in the Midwest, Maryville offers an innovative liberal arts education. This grant will go toward the 2022 Staenberg Lecture Series featuring Isabel Wilkerson. The Staenberg Lecture Series is the product of a five-year grant from Michael and Carol Staenberg, along with the Staenberg Family Foundation, to create a series of lectures in partnership with the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum.  

Washington University Studiolab ($4,960) – Studiolab is part of a series of curricular innovations of the Redesign Doctoral Education (RDE) initiative at Washington University and is an effort to develop the Public Humanities. These funds will support Studiolab’s “Memory for the Future,” a year-long course for graduate students and advanced undergraduate students. The course combines the collaborative study of representations of the interlinked histories of colonialism, slavery, and genocide with the development of curatorial skills and public educational projects that facilitate reparative memorial practices in and around St. Louis.  

Sprouts of Peace ($2,500) – These funds will be directed toward purchasing books for the Home Library program, printing educational resources, and providing supplies for in-person events at Sprouts, an ongoing initiative that provides interfaith programming for children. Home Library books are provided free of cost to families, and there are no participation fees for congregations or individual families to ensure that the program is accessible to all.

“We are grateful to support these four important projects through the Rubin and Gloria Feldman Family Educational Institute,” said Helen Turner, Director of Education & Interpretation. “We have no doubt that these funds will allow our partners to teach the history of the Holocaust and related issues, as well as foster empathy and understanding in the region and beyond.”  

The Institute funds programs of educational and artistic merit that do one or more of the following: explore the history and legacy of the Holocaust; use the lessons of the Holocaust to examine subjects of ethical, social, and political importance; facilitate dialogue between people of different ethnic, racial, and religious backgrounds; combat antisemitism, racism, and discrimination based on disability, sex, religion, sexual-orientation, or age. 

The St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum, a department of Jewish Federation of St. Louis, is dedicated to using the history and lessons of the Holocaust to reject hatred, promote understanding, and inspire change. The Museum currently provides virtual and in-person educational programming as it undergoes a $21 million expansion. The new, world-class institution will open in late summer 2022. Learn more at StlHolocaustMuseum.org.