University of Haifa historian named ‘Humanist of the Year’ for Holocaust art exhibit

Art historian Dr. Rachel Perry, a faculty member in University of Haifa’s Weiss-Livnat International Graduate Program in Holocaust Studies, is being awarded the 2018 “Humanist of the Year” award from The Inna and Michael Rogatchi Foundation for her leadership of a groundbreaking museum exhibit at the university.

Perry, who teaches a course on visual culture and the Holocaust, is the chief curator of “Arrivals, Departures,” which went on display at the northern Israeli campus’s Hecht Museum this year.

The exhibition featured the never-before-seen salvaged works of 18 Jewish artists from France who were killed by the Nazis. Those 138 artworks, known as the Oscar Ghez Collection, were donated to University of Haifa in 1978 by Dr. Oscar Ghez, and were researched and restored over the course of two years by students in the Weiss-Livnat program.

The Inna and Michael Rogatchi Foundation said the award was being given to Perry for her “extraordinary in-depth and detailed Arrivals, Departures project on the art and life of the Jewish artists from the École de Paris (School of Paris), sustainable humanistic teaching methodology, visionary art curatorship, in overall, the high act of humanism which has become a notable contribution into the art history of the Holocaust.”