Mandelbaum and Federman Families with benefactor James M. Kemper, Jr. (back center)

The Midwest Center for Holocaust Education (MCHE) was founded in 1993 by Holocaust survivors Isak Federman and Jack Mandelbaum. Our mission is to teach the history and lessons of the Holocaust to people of all races and religious beliefs throughout the Midwest to prevent its recurrence and perpetuate understanding, compassion, and mutual respect for generations to come. From our base at the Jewish Community Campus in Overland Park, MCHE has reached over 250,000 youths and adults through school and community outreach programs and through projects offered in cooperation with other not-for-profits.

Over 400 individuals are current members of MCHE. An operating endowment totaling over $2 million is prudently invested to ensure the future operations of the organization. Other sources of revenue include annual memberships, grants, tribute donations, and program fees, as well as sales of books and our documentary “The Holocaust: Through Our Own Eyes.” At the invitation of the Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas City, the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education joined the Federation’s list of beneficiary agencies in June 1996. Within the family of Federation agencies, we are unique in the bridges we build to the non-Jewish community. This priority is reflected in our board of directors, approximately one fourth of whom are not Jewish.

MCHE is a member of the Association of Holocaust Organizations (AHO), having hosted the 16 th annual conference of this group in June 2000. Jean Zeldin, MCHE’s Executive Director, serves as treasurer of the AHO board of directors.

Through a study of the Holocaust and the stories of the people who experienced it, the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education seeks to increase compassion and understanding. We teach what can happen within a democratic society when hatred and bigotry go unchallenged. We encourage individual responsibility by showing how the actions of one person can make a difference. We relate the events of the past to contemporary issues of intolerance.

MCHE serves a diverse population, in terms of age, religion, race, economic status, ethnicity, and gender. Programs reach both the Jewish and general community, including students and teachers in public, private, and parochial settings, primarily grades seven and up. We focus on Greater Kansas City, its urban, rural, and suburban areas, serving as a resource for other communities on a case-by-case basis.

Community partnerships reflect the scope of our mission. These have included the Truman Presidential Museum and Library, Science City at Union Station, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Kansas University, Kansas City Art Institute, RLDS World Church Headquarters, Temple B'nai Jehudah, Bruce R. Watkins Cultural Heritage Center, Guadalupe Center, Kansas City Harmony, Italian Cultural Center, Rockhurst University, Avila University, Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, American Jazz Museum, National Conference for Community and Justice, Lyric Opera, Coterie Theatre, Kansas City Symphony, Missouri Repertory Theatre, Kansas City Public Television, and the Kansas City, Missouri Police Department. MCHE’s newsletter was honored in 2002 by the Black Chamber of Commerce with its North Star Beacon of Freedom Award and was the recipient of the Council on Philanthropy’s 2006 Philly Award for best non-profit communication.

Our programs have included testimonial presentations by survivors and their children, an annual White Rose Student Essay Contest, teacher education, including a cadre of professional educators who serve as teacher-trainers and mentors, Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) commemoration, as well as special lectures and exhibits. Our resource center houses over 1,500 titles available for free loan. Traveling resource chests, each containing nearly $2,000 worth of books, videotapes, poster sets, witness testimonies, and teaching activities, are loaned to secondary school classrooms. We are on the web at www.mchekc.org.

MCHE has developed resources to preserve local connections to the Holocaust. Our Witnesses to the Holocaust project resulted in the taping of nearly fifty eyewitness testimonies and production of two award-winning video documentaries. MCHE’s Portrait 2000 exhibit includes fifty black and white photographs with accompanying text based on audiotaped interviews. In 2001 Kansas City Star books published From the Heart: Life Before and After the Holocaust ~ A Mosaic of Memories, based on Portrait 2000. "Mosaic of Memories," a scripted slide-format version of the exhibit for school and community audiences relates the story of the Holocaust through faces, family experiences, and insights of local survivors and refugees. These resources are being organized into an on-site Holocaust Witness Archive.

In April 2003, MCHE celebrated its tenth anniversary with a gala dinner and concert at the Overland Park Convention Center. The event, attended by 900 people representing both the Jewish and general communities, raised $105,000 for Holocaust-related programs and generated nearly $40,000 of in-kind donations.

The Midwest Center for Holocaust Education is served by Executive Director Jean Zeldin (not pictured), Evening Resource Assistant Laurel Maslowski, Director of University Programs and Adult Education
Dr. Frances G. Sternberg, Director of School Programs and Teacher Education Jessica Rockhold, Executive Assistant Dana Smith. A total of over 100 volunteers are involved in areas of teacher education, classroom and community programming, fundraising, governance, and administrative support.