The Holocaust Speaker Series, hosted every Wednesday at 11 a.m., features Holocaust survivors and descendants of survivors sharing stories of life before, during, and after the Holocaust. This week’s featured speaker is Peggy Weil Dorfman.
Peggy Weil Dorfman is a volunteer docent and speaker with the Kol Israel Foundation. Kol Israel is a small organization in Cleveland, Ohio that was formed in 1959 by a group of Holocaust Survivors that settled in Cleveland. Because they had no family, they started a social organization that now provides Holocaust education to middle and high school students across Northeast Ohio.
With a bachelor’s degree in education, Peggy began her career as a remedial reading teacher. After seven years in education, she transitioned to government service and managed economic development programs for a Northeast Ohio suburb for 32 years.
Past and present volunteer activities include tutoring in an adult literacy program and serving on the Board of Directors of her neighborhood homeowner’s association. She has been a volunteer with Kol Israel since 2019. She chose to get involved in Holocaust education because she is the daughter of European born Jews who fled Nazi persecution and immigrated to the United States in 1939.
Generously sponsored by Margaret and Michael Valentine and presented in partnership with the Harriet and Kenneth Kupferberg Holocaust Center and Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage.
We’re honored to welcome Jesse Eisenberg—Academy Award–nominated actor, writer, and director—as the celebrity host of the evening. Eisenberg’s latest film, A Real Pain, explores grief, memory, and generational trauma through the story of two cousins traveling to Poland to honor their grandmother, a Holocaust survivor. The film premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award, and was later released by Searchlight Pictures to widespread acclaim. Eisenberg received a BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay and an Academy Award nomination for his work.
