GALLOWAY TOWNSHIP – “One person can make a difference, and that person can definitely be you.”
This is the guiding principle that drives Irvin Moreno-Rodriguez as the new director of the Sara and Sam Schoffer Holocaust Resource Center at Stockton University. It’s a variation of a line his predecessor, Gail Rosenthal, used to tell students who came to the center for counseling.
“The path to a better future is through education. Holocaust education can really show students that they can be solutions in a harsh, sometimes bleak world where everyone is yelling at everyone else and no one gets along,” said Moreno-Rodriguez, who became the first Hispanic to lead one of New Jersey’s 30 Holocaust centers since her appointment in July. “They can make a difference, and we must never forget that.”
Moreno-Rodriguez, 30, of Pleasantville, has been the center’s deputy director since 2021 and a member of the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education. In addition to his bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Stockton University, he also earned a master’s degree in Holocaust and genocide studies there.
“The Board of the Sara and Sam Schoffer Holocaust Resource Center is extremely proud that Irvin Moreno-Rodriguez will succeed the late Gail Rosenthal as Executive Director of the Center. A graduate of Stockton University and Gail’s assistant, Irvin brings many years of experience and great continuity to his position,” said Leo Schoffer, a member of the HRC Board of Directors and son of Sara and Sam Schoffer. “As a scholar and teacher in the field, Irvin brings a special understanding of Holocaust and genocide studies that he passes on to his students and the many people who attend the Center’s programs and seminars.”
Susan Allan Stockton/Irvin Moreno-Rodriguez, 30, is the first Hispanic woman to lead a Holocaust center in New Jersey. The Pleasantville resident graduated from Stockton in 2015 and will complete her Master of Arts in Holocaust and Genocide Studies from the university in 2022.Moreno-Rodriguez said his special understanding comes from his life as a first-generation college student whose parents emigrated to the U.S. from Mexico. He is touched by the story of Holocaust survivors who fled to the U.S. and Latin American countries.
“The Holocaust serves as a warning of what happens when you don’t treat people with respect. What happens when you really start spreading lies, rumors and misinformation about people and instilling fear and xenophobia toward others, toward immigrants,” he said. “It’s a warning of what can happen, but it’s also a reminder that at the darkest point in history, there were still rays of light who were willing to go out and save lives.”
Both Schoffer and Moreno-Rodriguez know it will be very difficult to replace Rosenthal, who joined the Holocaust Resource Center in 1991 and served as its director until her death on October 13, 2023. She was a great mentor and had a major influence on Moreno-Rodriguez’s life – she even helped him obtain scholarships to study at Stockton.
“I don’t know how many people would go out of their way to help a young Mexican-American busboy at a pizza place,” Moreno-Rodriguez said of his first encounter with Rosenthal the summer after he graduated from Atlantic City High School in 2011. “And to give me the confidence, the skills and the courage to go out into a complicated world and be kind and try to make a difference in other people’s lives.”
Moreno-Rodriguez has worked with Rosenthal at the center since 2018 and was a frequent volunteer there while she was a student in Stockton from 2011 to 2015, serving as an informal tour guide for outside groups. Schoffer is confident that Moreno-Rodriguez will lead the Holocaust Resource Center into the future.
“Irvin is well-known and respected in his field and will bring his many connections to the center. We are truly excited about the future Irvin will bring to the center and Stockton University,” he said.
That future includes strengthening the center’s off-campus partnerships, such as with the Jewish Federation of Atlantic and Cape May Counties, and creating more programs for everyone. Since January, the Holocaust Resource Center in Stockton has offered more than 200 programs that are free and open to the public – a 165% increase over 2023.
“We don’t want to just host events for students at our center. We are more than that. We want events for students, faculty, staff and the community,” he said.
One of the first programs he co-organized was a virtual discussion in January on combating anti-Semitism in the classroom with renowned Holocaust scholar Michael Berenbaum. The HRC partnered with Kean University’s Holocaust Center, the Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest NJ in Morris County, and the Center for Holocaust, Human Rights and Genocide Education at Brookdale Community College in Monmouth County.
“We cannot work in isolation. We really need to start working together and uniting in these difficult times. That will only make us all stronger,” Moreno-Rodriguez said. “I want people to know what we are doing and why it is so important today in the face of rising open anti-Semitism.”
In addition, he wants to maintain the center’s role as a “safe place” for students on the Stockton campus and strengthen the center’s existing relationships with other campus groups.
“I feel like everyone knows about the center, but not everyone knows what we do, and that’s where there’s a difference,” he said.
He mentioned a recent study tour with the Alliance Heritage Center in Stockton, in which teachers in grades 1-12 traveled to sites in South Jersey associated with the Alliance Colony, the first successful Jewish agrarian community in America, as well as the center’s Holocaust Survivors of South Jersey Project.
He has taken steps to promote Stockton’s high school dual credit program in Holocaust and genocide studies and is proactive in establishing professional development programs for teachers at schools such as Winslow Township and Bridgeton. He also wants to improve the center’s website and add video resources and lesson plans for teachers.
Moreno-Rodriguez is also a strong advocate of educational trips for students – whether it’s trips abroad to concentration camps in Europe or taking virtual tours of the Anne Frank House or the Sobibor extermination camp, which the center first offered to high school students earlier this year.
“We really need to highlight these experiences. Whether students can travel abroad is always a financial question, but if we can bring these experiences home, I think we’ve filled the gap,” he said. “Learning from a book is one thing. It’s quite another thing to be guided through these experiences by one of the directors of the Sobibor Museum or one of the directors of the Anne Frank House. I know these tours can change students’ lives. They changed my life.”
And while all of these programs mention the horrors of the Holocaust, they also show that there was goodness and kindness during that time – often shown by just one person.
“It’s so important that we teach students these stories of rescue, resilience and resistance because we want them to become upright people,” Moreno-Rodriguez said. “We want them to be kind and gentle to each other and when the moment comes, to stand up and do the right thing.”
