NBA All-Star Ray Allen: Why I’m On The Board Of The U.S. Holocaust Museum
Ten-time NBA All-Star Ray Allen was sworn in last week to serve on the board of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. Allen, who was named to the position by former President Obama, is not only a two-time NBA champion and one of the greatest shooters of all time — he’s also passionate about Holocaust education.
When Allen learned about the Holocaust in college, “everything was like a shock to my system to understand this could take place and people didn’t really do anything about it,” he told the website The Undefeated on Friday. “It did something to my soul to be more cognizant of people around me. Care more about the next person.”
Allen first visited the museum in 1998 after being encouraged by his then-team’s owner, Sen. Herb Kohl. “I was blown away,” he remembered. “I thought, This is a place that everybody should go to….So, I took, from that day forward — every year, whatever team I played on — I would bring them to this museum.”
Later this month, Allen will visit the Auschwitz concentration camp. When it comes to Holocaust education, Allen explained, “I want people to look at something that I post, or something that I say, and then for themselves say, ‘You know what, I should go see that for myself.”
Contact Aiden Pink at pink@forward.com or on Twitter at @aidenpink.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.