by Arielle Walzer
Editorial Intern

August 20, 2009

Sister Joseph Spring said her fellow Catholic educators agreed with her that their recent Anti-Defamation League trip to Israel was “a life-changing experience.”

Spring, the president of Assumption College for Sisters in Mendham and a provincial councilor for the Sisters of Christian Charity Leadership Team, was the New Jersey representative among the 19 participants in ADL’s national Bearing Witness Advanced program.

The program, launched in 1998, is designed to give Catholic educators firsthand knowledge of Israel against the backdrop of Jewish history, the Holocaust, and Catholic-Jewish relations, and, Spring told NJJN, imparts a deeper understanding of Jewish/Christian relations.

Spring has been involved in Holocaust education since she was a school principal in 1994, when the state mandate was passed requiring the subject to be taught to all students. “The importance of the topic hit me between the eyes,” she said, and led her to become a dedicated proponent of Holocaust education, giving presentations to teachers about how to address the topic in Catholic schools.

Dr. Ed Alster, ADL director of education, accompanied the group; “as a Jewish man,” Spring said, “he has such respect for Christianity that we as Catholic school teachers reciprocated,” creating an atmosphere of “mutual reverence.”

This was illustrated by what she described as the most powerful part of the trip, visiting the tunnel under the Western Wall. The guide told the group this was one place that it is certain that Jesus walked, Spring said. When program participants knelt to touch and kiss the ground, Alster also removed his shoes. “It was incredibly moving,” she said.

In Israel, the educators visited Yad Vashem and talked with Holocaust survivors, historians, and pedagogical experts. They visited Christian and Jewish holy sites, climbed Masada, met with interfaith experts, and traveled around the country to meet with authors, journalists, and political analysts.

Alster said that the program, combining “experts’ knowledge of the Holocaust with the words of those who experienced it, can have a unique and powerful impact. The teachers learned firsthand how anti-Semitism can lead to tragedy if left unchecked.”

Participants prepared for the trip by attending a seminar with Holocaust and anti-Semitism experts at Seton Hall University in South Orange. Since its inception, Bearing Witness has trained more than 1,000 Catholic school educators across the country. 

Etzion Neuer, regional director of NJ ADL, said, “While a teacher may touch only one classroom in a semester, an administrator like Sister Joseph has the potential to impact thousands of students over her career. All the students who attend the college may benefit from her experience.”

Spring will next discuss the significance of teaching the Holocaust in Catholic schools at a teacher education day Oct. 1 at the College of St. Elizabeth in Morristown. She said she will “tweak” her presentation “to reflect the feelings I got from the trip.”

Other program participants were from Arizona, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Montana, New York, and Pennsylvania; all were graduates of regional ADL Bearing Witness programs.

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