JCoSS student, Gabriella Wilton, has been presented with a Bar-Ilan Award at this year’s JCoSS Awards Ceremony. The award was presented to Gabriella for her work as a Holocaust education ambassador.
First introduced to Holocaust education with the Holocaust Educational Trust, Gabriella was one of only two Jewish teenagers to attend the ‘Lessons from Auschwitz’ programme in 2022. Here, she recognised the significance of Holocaust education for non-Jewish students.
Inspired by the idea of co-education, Gabriella created an interfaith programme at JCoSS to co-educate Jewish and non-Jewish students about the Holocaust. The partnership took place in April 2023, during Yom HaShoah, when students from the neighbouring school were welcomed into JCoSS’s Remembrance Assembly.
The communal feeling of the Yom HaShoah Assembly encapsulated the pride of survival, and the ever- strengthening Jewish connection to the past. Gabriella spoke at the assembly, and explained the importance of Holocaust Education for Jewish and non-Jewish communities. She then arranged for all participating students to visit the Imperial War Museum for a guided tour of the Holocaust Exhibition.
Gabriella has created a long-standing partnership with JCoSS’s neighbouring school, so that each year this partnership can be replicated with new Year 9 students.
As a Holocaust Educational Trust ambassador, Gabriella has also spoken at the Ministry of Justice in Westminster and attended conferences with Holocaust Survivors and world-leading Holocaust experts.
Looking forwards, Gabriella plans to study Religion, Philosophy and Politics at university and is considering becoming a barrister.
Mazel tov Gabriella on this well-deserved Bar-Ilan Award!
