Berlin Fellowship 2022
Ten fellows participated in Widen the Circle’s year-long Berlin Fellowship, beginning in June with an immersive learning program in Germany.
Dr. Steven L. Becton is the chief officer for regional operations and organizational equity at the international educational foundation Facing History and Ourselves. He leads the internal diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging work at Facing History while providing vision for the organization's role as a national leader in educational equity professional development.
Adrianne Black (born R. Derek Black) was raised in one of the leading families of the American white nationalist movement. From an early age she participated in media interviews, gave talks around the country, and ran a daily radio program supporting white nationalism. She ultimately condemned her family’s ideology and began speaking against the reality of white supremacist political activism. She is the author of The Klansman's Son: My Journey from White Nationalism to Antiracism.
Jonathan Coenen is vice chairman of the BADEHAUS place of remembrance, a museum in Wolfratshausen near Munich, Germany. The site is a 2022 Obermayer Award winner and tells the local (migration) story of what began as a Nazi forced labor camp and after the war became the largest Jewish displaced persons camp in Europe, called Föhrenwald.
Gabriele Hannah, together with her writing and research partners — her brother Hans-Dieter Graf and his wife, Martina Graf — has published and edited several books and written dozens of articles in newspapers and magazines, all examining the lives of Jews in the Rhine-Hesse region. In 2019, they received an Obermayer Award for their extensive work.
Dr. Karlos K. Hill is a community-engaged historian at the University of Oklahoma who has focused on lynching and related elements of African American history and culture. He authored Beyond The Rope: The Impact of Lynching on Black Culture and Memory, and of The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre: A Photographic History, and founded a teacher training institute to support teaching the history of the race massacre.
Nancy K. Kaufman has had a distinguished career as a public servant, advocate, and nonprofit leader. She leads a strategic consulting and coaching practice and previously served as CEO of the National Council of Jewish Women. She served as executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, and has held senior positions in state and local government and in the nonprofit sector.
Dr. Deborah L. Plummer is founder and executive director of Getting to We Inc., a nonprofit that develops and promotes charitable initiatives and educational projects that turn us and them into we, especially in high conflict, emotionally charged social issues such as racism, sexism, and heterosexism. As a psychologist, university professor, and author, she speaks on topics central to racial equity, inclusion, and mutual respect.
Jerry Rubin currently writes and consults on labor and job development issues. He previously served as president and CEO of JVS Boston (Jewish Vocational Services of Boston), where he was responsible for the overall direction and management of the organization. Prior to joining JVS, he was vice president of building economic opportunities at Jobs For the Future, a national workforce development and education policy, research, and consulting organization.
Sabeth Schmidthals, 2020 Obermayer Award winner, teaches at the Theodor-Heuss-Gemeinschaftsschule, a high school in Berlin. Her students created a maintain a memorial at what was the largest deportation site in Berlin. Students’ families are often refugees or immigrants, and many students have experienced racism themselves. She helps them develop empathy for victims of the Holocaust, and a passion to fight racism and antisemitism.
Carlin Wragg is a documentarian and designer of media that expresses cultural values. As director of media at RAA, an interdisciplinary creative agency dedicated to the planning and design of museums and narrative environments, she has led the development of digital media for more than 70 global commissions. Recently, she produced a suite of media for The Lost Shtetl Museum in Seduva, Lithuania, with compelling testimony about the history and culture of the lost Jewish shtetlakh.