The Levine JCC’s Butterfly Project Workshops are interactive sessions focused on teaching the lessons of the Holocaust – how to identify and combat prejudice, stereotyping and discrimination, and to promote activism. The goal of the Levine JCC’s Butterfly Project is to teach each participant to remember the past, to act responsibly in the present and to create a more peaceful future.

It is critical that today’s youth examine the past in order to understand what can happen when individuals and governments fail to take a stand against injustice. The Levine JCC’s Butterfly Project teaches the lessons of the Holocaust and what can happen when biased attitudes, biased acts, and discrimination are allowed to flourish. The goal is that students implement what they have learned at a Butterfly Project Workshop into their daily lives so that, ultimately, they can better understand how to interrupt hateful behaviors in their schools, communities, society and beyond. We want to help each student understand the difference one person can make. Students walk away with an awareness of the effects of the Holocaust on its most innocent victims – the children.

The 2 ½ hour workshop includes:
Listening to a Holocaust survivor’s story, followed by Q&A.
An interactive multimedia exercise using the Anti-Defamation League’s Pyramid of Hate, during which students examine what can happen when individuals and governments fail to respect and protect all people
Painting a ceramic butterfly in memory of a specific child who perished in the Holocaust
A discussion in the Margaret and Lou Schwartz Butterfly Garden, while viewing the Holocaust Memorial.