Jan Darsa

“Although I did not grow up with formal Jewish education, even as a child I was drawn to Jewish learning. Perhaps the belief that ‘we all stood together at Sinai’ explains where I am now. When I was young, I dreamed and longed to know who I was and where I came from. Like Hillel, I landed on the ‘roof’ to glimpse into Jewish learning from above. Despite my request to ‘know,’ spiritual, educational, and religious traditions were absent from my youth. Hence, my life has been a journey, a search for a spiritual meaning combined with a vision for education and social justice.

After graduating from the UC Berkeley in 1969, Jan attended the WUJS (World Union of Jewish Students) Institute in Israel for two years. Jan describes her experience at WUJS as a turning point in her life. She returned to the United States to pursue a Masters in Education at Boston University and began her career as a teacher in both Jewish and public school settings. Jan first began teaching the Facing History and Ourselves curriculum in 1981, as an English teacher in a public high school.

“When I first encountered Facing History and Ourselves,” she writes, “I was immediately drawn to it because of its mission to engage students to make the world a better place through the lens of social justice and civic responsibility.” Soon after, Jan joined the staff of Facing History and Ourselves as a program associate.

As a Jerusalem Mandel Fellow from 1988 to 1990, Jan chose to explore how Facing History and Ourselves could be ‘translated’ for the Jewish educational world and to examine what additional materials needed to be developed to enhance Facing History’s work in that setting. Upon completion of the program, she returned to Facing History to develop a program within the organization that would address some of these specific needs.

Reflecting on her two years as a Jerusalem Fellow, Jan remarks, “I am reminded of those days back in Jerusalem when I realized that I am a person who needs the dream as much as I need the fulfillment of the dream. I returned to the United States with a renewed vigor and began the creation of the Jewish Education program at Facing History and the development of Facing History: the Jews of Poland,” which she co-authored and published in 1998.

As Director of Jewish Education, Jan has built an original and dynamic Jewish framework for examining the Holocaust, history, and human behavior, with activities and resources that explore Jewish history, ethics, and identity. She has personally trained over 1500 Jewish educators and, through them, has impacted tens of thousands of Jewish students from all denominations.

“Undertaking a career in Jewish education is about the hope and promise that our young people embody. We do this out of a passionate belief in the future.”