Marc Gopin
Marc Gopin, director of George Mason University’s Center for World Religions, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution, will be the keynote speaker at the annual Mason Hillel “Expressions of the Holocaust” event on the Fairfax Campus in Merten Hall, Room 1201, Sunday at 6 p.m.
The free event, open to the Mason community and to the general public, will include testimonies from Holocaust survivors. This year’s event theme is “The Power of Hate and The Power of Love.”
“Expressions of the Holocaust” comes days after a gunman opened fire in a Pittsburgh synagogue, killing 11 people and injuring six more. In early October, a Jewish community center in Fairfax County was vandalized and spray-painted with swastikas, the second such incident there in 18 months.
“We human beings are endowed with a unique inborn capacity for both compassion and brutality, murderous ingenuity and loving nurture,” Gopin said. “We determine with our minds, with our bad ideas and our good ideas, what prevails in our nature. The Holocaust brought out the worst of our human potential. But there are those who discovered nobility, resilience, courage and compassion.”
The event is sponsored by the Center for World Religions, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution and several Mason and community groups. Mason President Ángel Cabrera and Jeff Dannick, executive director of the Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia, are scheduled to offer opening remarks.
Register here. Parking is available at the Rappahannock River Parking Deck on University Drive. A kosher dinner will be provided.