Awards and Scholarships for
Hebrew High Teens
For more information on any of the available awards and scholarships please contact Myra Shindler, BJE Director and Hebrew High Principal at myras@bjephoenix.org
Bronia & Sam Bronkesh
Jewish Spirit Prize
$500 Award
Essay contest honoring physical and spiritual resistance during the Holocaust
High School
FIRST PRIZE: $500.00
SECOND PRIZE: $300.00
THIRD PRIZE: $100.00
Essays will be judged on how well the student explores the use of lessons from and reactions to the Holocaust to make a better world. Works should demonstrate both in-depth learning about the Holocaust and personal reflections.
This year’s theme addresses the role of “up-standers vs. by-standers,” specifically looking at how the murder of more than two million Jews killed by the Nazis, in open fields in countries of the former Soviet Union, were carried out in broad daylight before witnesses.
Often, they were treated as a public spectacle. The Nazis deliberately involved the local inhabitants in the mechanics of death—whether it was to cook for the killers, to dig or cover the graves, to witness their Jewish neighbors being marched off, or to take part in the slaughter.
Maximum word count: 1200 words (Points will be deducted for going over)
SUBMISSIONS ARE DUE: February 14, 2020
Winning essay will be read at our community’s annual Yom HaShoah Commemoration in April 2020.
Every student who submits an essay will be recognized and receive a certificate of participation.
By submitting an essay, applicants certify that their essays are original, authored solely by them.
Send your essays to Myra Shindler at myras@bjephoenix.org
Need help getting started? - Suggested Reading
Books and websites related to the resistance are readily available at your public library, the BJE library, or at Amazon.com
In Broad Daylight by Father Patrick Desbois
Based on a decade of work by Father Patrick Desbois and his team at Yahad In Unum has culminated to date in interviews with more than 5,700 neighbors to the murdered Jews and visits to more than 2,700 extermination sites, many of them unmarked.
Yad VaShem Database of the Righteous
Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
(Yale University)
The Jewish Foundation for the Righteous:
Resources on righteous rescuers
Shoah Foundation
An organization that exists to further the remembrance of the Shoah of World War II.
2012 Bronkesh Jewish Spirit Prize Award Winner, Liana Sherman, Myra Shindler (Executive Director) and Bronia Cimmerman Bronkesh Z"L
Beyond Courage: The Untold Story of Jewish Resistance During the Holocaust by Doreen Rappaport
Defiance by Nechama Tec
The Wall by John Hersey
The Avengers by Rich Cohen
The Brigade: An Epic Story of Vengeance, Salvation, and WWII by Howard Blum
Life in a Jar: The Irena Sendler Project by Jack Mayer
If It's Not Impossible: The Life of Sir Nicholas Winton by Barbara Winton
In Search of Sugihara: The Elusive Japanese Diplomat Who Risked his Life to Rescue 10,000 Jews From the Holocaust by Hillel Levine
Raoul Wallenberg: The Heroic Life and Mysterious Disappearance of the Man Who Saved Thousands of Hungarian Jews from the Holocaust by Ingrid Carlberg
Explore: www.jewishpartisans.org
Approximately 30,000 Jews throughout Eastern and Western Europe - many of them teens - fought back during the Holocaust as Jewish partisans.
Graduation Gift to Israel
$5000 Gift
Hebrew High teens who attend at least 4 years of classes are eligible to receive a $5000 gift to Israel, to be used for post high school studies in Israel.
This can include a Gap Year or a semester abroad of study in Israel.
Sarah Levitz
Study Fellowship in Israel
$3000 Scholarship
Spending your Junior Year Abroad or Gap Year in Israel?
Receive funding through the Sarah Levitz Study Fellowship in Israel.
Teens can receive this scholarship money anytime during high school following your freshman year.
Eight week sessions are offered in the summer and during the school year, where you can learn and tour Israel while completing your high school academic classes.
Funding Levels:
$500 Scholarship with $0 donation to BJE
$2000 Scholarship with $500 donation to BJE
$3000 Scholarship with $1000 donation to BJE
Harold & Jean Grossman Teen Israel Experience Scholarship Fund
Going on an education trip? Don't forget to apply for a grant from: Harold and Jean Grossman Teen Israel Experience Scholarship Fund
The Harold & Jean Grossman Teen Israel Experience Incentive Grant was made possible by a generous endowment the Grossman family established at the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Phoenix, offers funding to encourage teens to participate in an Israel Experience program of at least a one-week duration.