Temple B’nai Shalom’s Daniel Pearl Education Center is the only school-based center in the US dedicated to the ideals of the late Daniel Pearl, the highly-respected Wall Street Journal reporter who was killed by extremists in Pakistan while researching a story.
Activities of the Daniel Pearl Education Center include:
Active integration of Daniel Pearl Education Center themes into the curriculum of the temple’s Religious School, Confirmation program and adult education program.
Celebration of Daniel Pearl Music Days, a global celebration. Noted jazz musician Cliff Korman was the featured performer at this year's free concert.
An annual trip to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, for Temple B’nai Shalom’s Bar/Bat Mitzvah class and the eighth grade class at East Brunswick’s St. Bartholomew’s parochial school.
A videotaping program of area Holocaust survivors by temple teens.
A planned “teaching tolerance” symposium for area religious and public school teachers.
And much, much more.
5th Annual Holocaust Memorial Museum Trip - 2010
The Horrors of the Holocaust ... Remembered
Assemblyman Patrick J. Diegnan Jr. speaks with Holocaust survivor Moshe Gimlan of Monroe at a recent program at the Daniel Pearl Education Center at Temple B'nai Shalom in East Brunswick. Assemblyman Diegnan and Mr. Gimlan were guest speakers at the Daniel Pearl Education Center program -- a special debriefing for the participants held the day after the center's annual multifaith trip to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.(Bruce Tucker Photo).
Ninety years young, Moshe Gimlan unfolded a stack of papers and, in a strong unwavering voice, began to relive the greatest horror of his life. In the process, he provided the teens, parents and teachers gathered at Temple B'nai Shalom with an emotional, graphic and first-hand history of the Holocaust.
Mr. Gimlan, a resident of Monroe and a guest at Temple B'nai Shalom as part of the Daniel Pearl Education Center's day-after debriefing following its annual multifaith trip to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, started at the beginning, when his family was rounded into the Plaszov Ghetto -- the site where the movie and real-life Schindler's List took place -- and ended with his liberation by the American army, with his entire family gone.
The Daniel Pearl Education Center Inc. committee continues its active outreach to the community to support the principles of humanity and understanding -- as well as harmony through music -- that are the legacies of the late Daniel Pearl.
In February, the DPEC committee sponsored its fourth annual interfaith trip to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. This year's trip involved approximately 70 teens from Temple B'nai Shalom, Saint Bartholomew's Parochial School and the First Reformed Church of Highland Park, as well as nearly 30 chaperones. The delegation visited the museum and then paid visits to the Lincoln Memorial and the Vietnam Memorial Wall.
The next day, a number of the teens returned to the temple to hear stories of persecution and triumph from Holocaust survivor Judith Sherman and Cuban-born US Congressman Albio Sires. The program was moderated by Temple B'nai Shalom congregant David Litt, a member of the DPEC committee.
Sherman, who lives in Monroe and is the author of Say the Name: A Survivor's Tale in Poetry and Prose, told the teens, "After many years of silence as a survivor, I feel that I do have to bear witness, and so I will. I have no choice but to do so."
She added, "Anti-Semitism and genocide continue, and we adults are not doing such a good job in this world in preventing these things from happening."
Congressman Sires, who emigrated from Cuba as a child and lived with his family in West New York, talked about the enthnic intolerance he faced as a child.
"I was called a 'spic,'" he told the audience. "I was not allowed to play basketball on the court owned by the town."
He added, "You should just take a person for what they are, how they treat you, and do not characterize them. I lived with that lesson all my life."
East Brunswick, October 6, 2008 – The Daniel Pearl Education Center is planning to turn words into action and music into inspiration with two unique programs on Thursday, Oct. 16 in East Brunswick.
The East Brunswick-based nonprofit, affiliated with Temple B’nai Shalom, will start the special day with a teacher workshop to help area teachers – from public, private, religious and national origin schools – learn how to teach about genocide, bias, prejudice and bigotry. The workshop is being co-sponsored by the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education, with support from the Allen and Joan Bildner Center for the Study of Jewish Life at Rutgers University, St. Bartholomew School of East Brunswick and the Jewish Federation of Greater Middlesex County.
I grew up in China, where, on the outside, everyone was the same. We all had dark hair and yellow skin, spoke the same language, and practiced the same customs. At age four, I moved to America, and everything changed. Suddenly, most of the people around me didn’t look like me anymore. Moving to the United States made me more aware of my own heritage and culture, and immersed me in the traditions and customs of my friends.
Over the years, I’ve come to better understand the importance and benefits of tolerance and diversity. As a second grader, I often traded my Chinese dumplings for my friend’s Indian naan; as a high school junior, I traded childhood stories with a friend who fled Serbia with her parents during the Bosnian War. And I’ve always remained dedicated to the things that gave me those opportunities: tolerance and understanding.
House of Learning 
