Discussion with Dr. Michael Berenbaum, Mary Pat Higgins, and Sarah Weiss: “How Does One Explore the Impact of the Holocaust on Human Rights and Our Common Humanity in a Museum Setting and Beyond?”

Classrooms Without Borders is honored to convene a panel discussion on the topic of “How Does One Explore the Impact of the Holocaust on Human Rights and Our Common Humanity in a Museum Setting and Beyond?” This discussion will be moderated by Dr. Michael Berenbaum.
Mary Pat Higgins

As President and CEO of the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum, Mary Pat Higgins leads the Museum in its mission to teach the history of the Holocaust and advance human rights to combat prejudice, hatred and indifference.

Under Mary Pat’s leadership, the Museum underwent a significant transition as it moved from its transitional location to a new, permanent home, which opened to the public on September 18, 2019. The new state-of-the-art facility accommodates an expanded core exhibit and a larger volume of visitors. Additionally, it enables the Museum to grow its education program. The vision for the new Museum includes a broadened perspective, with exhibits and narratives focused on human and civil rights, pluralism and diversity, and other genocides, in addition to the history of the Holocaust.

Mary Pat has been a longtime advocate for children and educational initiatives. Prior to her role at the Museum, Mary Pat served as Associate Head and Chief Financial Officer at The Hockaday School in Dallas. She oversaw the annual operating budget, numerous school departments, investment management for a $125 million endowment and substantial construction and renovation activities.

Outside of the Museum, Mary Pat is active in the greater non-profit community of Dallas and has served on the boards of Oak Hill Academy, Preston Hollow Presbyterian School, Planned Parenthood of North Texas, KERA, the Dallas Women’s Foundation, and the President’s Visiting Council of Austin College. She currently serves on the board of The Ursuline Academy, VisitDallas, Co-chairing the Cultural Tourism Committee, and North Dallas Bank & Trust. She earned a bachelor’s degree in Accounting from The University of Texas at Austin, is a Certified Public Accountant, and is a graduate of Southern Methodist University’s Cox School of Business Executive MBA Program.

Mary Pat and her husband, Lance, have lived in Dallas since 1989, and they have two grown sons.

Sarah Weiss

Sarah Weiss is the chief executive officer of the Nancy & David Wolf Holocaust & Humanity Center. She joined the staff of HHC in 2004. In 2007, Sarah became the executive director and has worked to formulate lasting partnerships with organizations and educational facilities locally, nationally and internationally. Most recently, Sarah spearheaded the Center’s relocation and museum opening at Cincinnati’s historic Union Terminal. From 2011-2017, Sarah took on the additional role as director of the Jewish Community Relations Council at the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati. In this capacity, Sarah built bridges between the Jewish and non-Jewish communities as well as advocates on behalf of the Jewish community and Israel. She is the 2007 recipient of the Public Allies “Changemaker” award, the 2011 Weston Avodah award presented by the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati, a 2012 YWCA Rising Star, and the 2013 recipient of the FBI’s Director’s Leadership Award. Sarah serves on the Ohio Holocaust Council and as Treasurer for the Association of Holocaust Organizations. Sarah brings a personal connection to this work as the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors.

Dr. Michael Berenbaum

Dr. Michael Berenbaum is a writer, lecturer, and teacher consulting in the conceptual development of museums and historical films. He is director of the Sigi Ziering Institute: Exploring the Ethical and Religious Implications of the Holocaust at the American Jewish University, where he is also a Professor of Jewish Studies.

He was the Executive Editor of the Second Edition of the Encyclopaedia Judaica that reworked, transformed, improved, broadened and deepened, the now classic 1972 work and consists of 22 volumes, sixteen million words with 25,000 individual contributions to Jewish knowledge. For three years, he was President and Chief Executive Officer of the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation. He was the Director of the United States Holocaust Research Institute at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Hymen Goldman Adjunct Professor of Theology at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. From 1988–93 he served as Project Director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, overseeing its creation. He also served as Deputy Director of the President’s Commission on the Holocaust, where he authored its Report to the President.

Berenbaum is the author and editor of twenty books, scores of scholarly articles, and hundreds of journalistic pieces. His most recent books include: Not Your Father’s Antisemitism, A Promise to Remember: The Holocaust in the Words and Voices of Its Survivors and After the Passion Has Passed: American Religious Consequences, a collection of essays on Jews, Judaism and Christianity, Religious Tolerance and Pluralism occasioned by the controversy that swirled around Mel Gibson’s film, The Passion. He was the conceptual developer on the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Educational Center and played a similar function as conceptual developer and chief curator of the Belzec Memorial at the site of the Death Camp. He is currently at work on the Memorial Museum to Macedonian Jewry in Skopje, the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum, and the Holocaust and Humanity Center in Cincinnati, Ohio.