Georgetown Plans Holocaust Program With $10M Gift
Georgetown University will create a permanent program on the forensic study of the Holocaust using a new $10 million gift.
The donation to the Washington, D.C., school is from Norman and Irma Braman, a Florida couple who have made large gifts to other universities and hospitals. Norman Braman is founding chairman of the Holocaust Memorial Miami Beach, and the couple is active with Yad Vashem in Israel and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.
The Braman Endowed Program Fund will support teaching, research and field study for Georgetown faculty and students and fund the development of a new public outreach program with the aim of preventing future Holocausts. The money will fund an endowed professorship as well as research and public service programs on the Holocaust.
“This gift will ensure that the study of the Holocaust remains an integral area of study and scholarship at Georgetown,” the Jesuit and Catholic university’s president, John DeGioia, said in a statement issued Wednesday.
The Rev. Patrick Desbois, a historian, was named the first holder of the Braman Endowed Professorship of the Practice of the Forensic Study of the Holocaust. A Roman Catholic priest from France, Desbois was instrumental in bringing the Bramans’ gift to Georgetown.
“I have decided to make this gift, now, and to Georgetown, in part as a sign of my appreciation for the leadership of Pope Francis and the priority he so clearly attaches to fostering closer relations between Jews and Catholics,” Norman Braman said in the university statement.
Georgetown also announced that as of Feb. 29, its Program for Jewish Civilization will be renamed the Center for Jewish Civilization.
The center will teach many aspects of the Holocaust, including its causes and consequences, its role in the establishment of the modern State of Israel, its continuing impact on modern Judaism, anti-Semitism and questions of Israel’s legitimacy.
The Program for Jewish Civilization, which opened in 2003, has received gifts totaling $10 million from more than 500 alumni and friends to ensure it would be permanently endowed.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we need 500 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
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.
Our Goal: 500 gifts during our Passover Pledge Drive!