Maplewood Resident Jonathan Kaplowitz Chosen For Prestigious Museum Internship Program

Maplewood resident Jonathan Kaplowitz has been chosen to participate in the Lipper Internship Program at the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in Lower Manhattan. Kaplowitz is one of 16 interns this semester who will learn how to teach twentieth century Jewish history and the Holocaust to young people. Since the Lipper program started in 1998, interns have worked with over 50,000 students from around the Northeastern United States.

Kaplowitz is studying history and classics at Lafayette College. Mostly recently, he has interned at the Newark Museum, where he curated several children’s exhibitions. As part of his training for the Lipper Internship, he studied the Museum’s exhibitions, heard testimony from Holocaust survivors, and attended seminars led by Museum scholars. Kaplowitz and his fellow interns will now spend the rest of the semester sharing their knowledge with schools throughout the tri-state area by giving presentations on Jewish heritage and the Holocaust. After these introductory sessions, the interns bring groups of middle and high school students to the Museum, where lessons are complemented by tours of the Museum’s Core Exhibition. Lippers return to the schools to discuss the material, encouraging students to share reactions and insights.

Chris Klumpp, a teacher at Windsor High School in Windsor, New York, praises the program as “a fantastic opportunity.” “The Holocaust is only briefly studied in our high school and this… allowed students to gain a more personal grasp of this horrible event.”

This program is made possible through the generous support of the EGL Charitable Foundation with additional support from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany: Rabbi Israel Miller Fund for Shoah Research, Documentation and Education.

For more information about the Lipper Internship Program and other opportunities for students, please visit www.mjhnyc.org.