Evening of Roses Honors Reverend Forrest Pritchett; Recognizes Rabbi Michael Berenbaum with Humanities and Holocaust Education Award

Rev. Dr. Forrest M. Pritchett, director of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Leadership Program and the University Gospel Choir will be honored with the Sister Rose Thering Fund Clergy Award.

At the event, SRTF will also recognize Rabbi Michael Berenbaum, distinguished professor and director of the Sigi Ziering Institute of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at American Jewish University with the Sister Rose Thering Fund Award in the Humanities and Holocaust Education. Rabbi Berenbaum served as project director overseeing the creation of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and was the first director of its Research Institute.

In making the announcement Anthony Sciglitano, Ph.D., SRTF executive director said, “Forrest Pritchett is one of Seton Hall University’s most treasured leaders, with a long professional and personal history of civil rights activism and mentorship. The Sister Rose Thering Fund is privileged to honor Rev. Dr. Pritchett with our Clergy Award, created to distinguish clergypeople in our community for their work in achieving so much of what our world needs.” Sciglitano, associate professor of Religion, College of Arts and Sciences, noted, “Rev. Pritchett is well regarded for his ability to connect with not only Seton Hall students, faculty, staff and administration, but also with the community that surrounds our campus.”

In his nomination of Reverend Pritchett for the annual Sister Rose Thering Fund Clergy Award, SRTF vice chair Frank Stebbins stated, “Rev. Dr. Forrest Pritchett is, and has always been, a partner in the work and mission of the Sister Rose Thering Fund. Anyone fortunate enough to be in conversation with him sees the world open up with lessons of hope, of empowerment and of the difference an individual can make when encountering injustice. While their stories and identities are very different, both Sister Rose and Rev. Pritchett serve as examples to generations of young people about the power of making choices, and the impact that engagement can have when trying to bring change to one’s community.”

Civil Rights Icon, Distinguished Religious Leader, Transformative Educator and Mentor

A native of Atlantic City, New Jersey, Reverend Pritchett graduated from Delaware State University with a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship for promising future university professors. He continued his studies in sociology at the New School for Social Research, New York City. His higher education career spans 60 years, including 45 years of transformative leadership at Seton Hall, mentoring generations of student servant leaders.

Lauded as a civil rights icon, educator and religious leader, Reverend Pritchett is currently program director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Leadership Program and the University Gospel Choir and serves on the Africana Studies faculty and on the faculty and advisory board of the University Core Curriculum. Through the MLK Jr. Leadership Program, he is an integral part of the annual Romero-King Week, during which Seton Hall honors St. Oscar Romero and the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., with separate vigils on the University Green. He is well known for coordinating the annual MLK, Jr. Day Symposium, which provides academic credit and perspectives on racism, privilege and justice while educating students and the community on the principles of MLK as a civil rights advocate. The MLK program at Seton Hall is among the oldest such programs in the United States. Under his leadership, the size of the MLK Leadership Program more than doubled and supports up to 20 students each year financially with a $6,000+ scholarship. The program currently includes over 80 students from around the world.

Reverend Pritchett shared that during his early decades at Seton Hall, he was mentored by Sister Rose Thering and Bishop Joseph Francis of the Archdiocese of Newark.

“As someone who has inspired generations of Pirates through his many roles and has contributed greatly to numerous campus organizations, the University continues to embrace Pritchett as a servant leader and a pillar of the campus community who has helped to challenge the University to be and do better. We encourage everyone to celebrate his life and legacy with us,” shared Sciglitano.

Holocaust Scholar, Author, Curator, Award-winning Filmmaker

Michael Berenbaum is a distinguished professor of Jewish studies and director of the Sigi Ziering Institute: Exploring the Ethical and Religious Implications of the Holocaust at American Jewish University in Los Angeles. He has created Holocaust and human rights museums on three continents and in several American cities, and headed the Shoah Visual History Foundation. The author and editor of 24 books, he was the executive editor of the second edition of the Encyclopaedia Judaica.

In addition to serving as project director overseeing the creation of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the first director of its Research Institute, Rabbi Berenbaum later served as President and CEO of the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, which took the testimony of 52,000 Holocaust survivors in 32 languages and 57 countries. He has developed and curated museums in the United States, Mexico, North Macedonia and Poland and his award-winning exhibition "Auschwitz: Not Long Ago, Not Far Away" has been in Madrid and Malmo, New York, Kansas City, the Ronald Regan Library in California and will soon open in Boston. Among his filmmaking credits, he served as co-producer for One Survivor Remembers: The Gerda Weisman Klein Story, which received an Academy Award, Emmy Award and a Cable Ace Award in 1995; and he served as the historical consultant for The Last Days, which received the Academy Award for Best Feature-Length Documentary in 1999.

About the Evening of Roses and Sister Rose Thering Fund

The annual Evening of Roses is the primary fundraising event for the Sister Rose Thering Fund for Education in Jewish-Christian Studies. The SRTF awards full tuition scholarships to teachers and educators who matriculate in Seton Hall’s graduate certificate program in Jewish-Christian Studies. The Fund was created in 1993 and named in honor of Sister Rose Thering, O.P., Ph.D., in recognition and appreciation of her exemplary dedication throughout her life, and that continuing legacy to improving Jewish-Christian relations through teacher education, especially at the elementary and secondary school levels. The Fund’s mission, to advance the legacy of Sister Rose Thering by fostering understanding and cooperation among Jews, Christians and people of other religious traditions through advocacy and education, works in tandem with the goals of its other programs, all designed to reduce prejudice born of ignorance and misperception, to promote means for conveying the richness of the Jewish and Christian traditions accurately and without bias. More than 500 teachers and administrators throughout New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania have benefited from Fund scholarships for their studies at Seton Hall University’s Jewish-Christian Studies graduate program during the past two decades, impacting the learning and lives of hundreds of thousands of students in their classrooms.

Honorees in years past have included Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel, best-selling author and professor Daniel Mendelsohn, novelist and essayist Cynthia Ozick, former national director of the Anti-Defamation League Abe Foxman, Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Oren Jacoby, celebrated violinist Joshua Bell and philanthropists Toby and Leon Cooperman.

Event registration has been extended through May 30. For additional information, visit the Evening of Roses website or contact the Sister Rose Thering Fund at [email protected].

Categories: Faith and Service, Research