(Courtesy of CCE) Dr. Shay Pilnik, the new director of the Emil and Jenny A. Fish Holocaust and Genocide Studies Center at Yeshiva University, will be delivering a lecture on Kristallnacht on Thursday evening, November 5, at 8 p.m. via Zoom.

The title of the talk is “The Night of Broken Glass: History and Memory” and it is being sponsored by the Center for Community Education (CCE), a new initiative of the Bi-Cultural Hebrew Academy of Connecticut.

The grandson of Holocaust survivors from Lithuania and Poland who immigrated to Israel from the USSR about a decade after the founding of the Jewish state, Dr. Pilnik just recently moved to Stamford after accepting the position at Yeshiva University.

“We are delighted to be able to present a pre-Kristallnacht program to our Stamford residents, and to the larger Jewish community, by such a noted expert,” said Michael Feldstein, who is the co-chair of the CCE. “We are also pleased that Congregation Agudath Sholom and the Young Israel of Stamford have both agreed to join the CCE in co-sponsoring the event.”

Prior to his position at Yeshiva University, Dr. Pilnik was the executive director of the Nathan and Esther Pelz Holocaust Education Resource Center (HERC) in Milwaukee from 2014-2020.

Pilnik earned his bachelor’s degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, majoring in comparative literature and Jewish thought. He also received a master’s in Jewish studies from McGill University and a doctoral degree from the Jewish Theological Seminary in modern Jewish studies. From 2008-2014, he was an adjunct instructor at the University of Wisconsin, lecturing on a variety of topics including the Holocaust, modern Jewish history and culture, Judaism, Hebrew Bible and the religions of the world.

To register for the Kristallnacht program and receive a Zoom ID, please visit www.bchaupperschool.org/cce.