Jewish Family & Children’s Service is hosting a crisis and response training for professionals and paraprofessionals from Jewish faith-based organizations. The training will take place at Temple Chai, 4645 E Marilyn Rd, Phoenix, AZ 85032 on Tuesday, April 24 from 6 – 8:30 pm. There is no cost to attend, but registration is required.
When a crisis occurs in the Phoenix Jewish community, these trained volunteers will be available to offer immediate support services to help those impacted cope with the aftermath of the crisis.
This three-hour training will give participants the opportunity to enhance their crisis intervention skills and gives the volunteers additional insight into the challenges faced by the community in the wake of a crisis situation.
Participants will leave the training with the skills to provide culturally sensitive responses to those in crisis, including those that have been victims of a hate crime, as well as a deeper understanding of how people heal through EMDR therapy.
The training session will be presented by Ira Dressner, Ph.D., LCSW, EMDR Consultant and Trainer, and Liana Dressner, MSW, LCSW, EMDR Consultant. Ira Dressner graduated from the Maxwell School of Public Affairs with a MPA and Ph.D. He has been a psychotherapist and counselor for 26 years and specializes in trauma. Liana Dressner graduated with her bachelor’s in social work and Master’s in Social Work from New York University.
The Center for Holocaust Education and Human Dignity of the East Valley JCC presents “Elie Wiesel and Primo Levi: The Gray Zone of Holocaust Survival” 6 p.m. Monday, Nov. 18, at Chandler Center for the Arts.
Professor Nancy Harrowitz of Boston University’s Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies will read written works by two Auschwitz survivors, Primo Levi and Elie Wiesel, and discuss how they started a new life after the Holocaust.
Elie Wiesel and Primo Levi are the two most widely read authors on the subject of the Holocaust. They share their harrowing and deeply moving stories in very different ways, but are tied together through a deeply philosophical perspective, an emphasis on social justice, and the meaningful legacies they have left behind. How do they create an approach to the Holocaust that brings readers to appreciate its importance in today’s world? How can looking at their stories and how they tell them help us understand their relevance? What can we learn from these two writers/survivors? The program is the debut of a partnership with Boston University’s Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies.
Nancy Harrowitz is a professor of Italian and Jewish studies at Boston University. She has published widely on anti-Semitism and gender in the modern period. Her most recent work includes the book “Primo Levi and the Identity of a Survivor.” At Boston University, she teaches courses on modern Italian literature, film and literature produced under fascism, and representations of the Holocaust in literature and film. She also directs the school’s new minor in Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights Studies.