The JFCS Holocaust Center is dedicated to the education, documentation, research, and remembrance of the Holocaust. The Holocaust Center is Northern California's primary resource for Holocaust education, leading the effort to increase awareness among the general public about the causes and consequences of racism, anti-Semitism, intolerance, and indifference during the Holocaust and today.

With our partner Lehrhaus Judaica, we offer courses, screenings, lectures, overseas study tours; facilitate survivors' memoirs; and conduct special research projects with teens, college students, and professional historians. Lehrhaus educators will maintain an office at the Holocaust Center.

The center works with public, private, parochial, and Jewish schools, as well as the general public, to honor Holocaust survivors; increase understanding of the instrumental events of Jewish history; and establish effective programming for the post-eyewitness era.

Recognizing the vital role that survivors play in educating our community about the Holocaust and other genocides and the consequences of intolerance, indifference, and inaction, JFCS has taken a lead in programming that allows people of all ages to learn vital lessons from survivors' histories and personal experiences. The Tauber Holocaust Library and Education Program is at the heart of JFCS' Holocaust Center. Survivors who participate in our Speakers Bureau have imparted important messages to thousands of young people of all ages and grade levels, and our educational programs afford teachers, as well as students, opportunities to think more critically about timely, yet timeless, issues.

For several years, JFCS' Next Chapter Project, a program that we offer in partnership with the Taube Foundation for Jewish Life and Culture and in coordination with Congregational Emanu-El of San Francisco, has connected Bay Area high school students interested in learning about the Holocaust to survivors, who share first-hand accounts of their lives before, during, and after World War II.

Care for the Survivors

As a 160-year-old institution whose mission is to help those in need, JFCS possesses a deep sense of responsibility to care for Holocaust survivors, who are an integral part of our community. We have helped thousands of survivors over the decades through our Seniors•At•Home home care and support services, comprehensive reparations assistance program, and JFCS RIDES transportation services.  In addition to many direct services that address survivors' physical, financial, and emotional well-being, our Café by the Bay programs offer survivors ample social, cultural, and educational opportunities, as well as the chance to spend time with friends. 

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