Director of Education and Public Engagement
Dr. Christine Beresniova is the Director of Education and Public Engagement at J Street. She has spent her professional career designing programs on peace and tolerance education. She joined J street from the South Carolina Council on the Holocaust where she was executive director overseeing the creation of state standards, educational resources, and capacity building programs throughout the state. Prior to this role, she ran the International Conference on Holocaust Education at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum with UNESCO for diplomatic and community leaders from countries where the Holocaust was not taught or was politically challenged.
Her book Holocaust Education in Lithuania: Community, Change, and the Making of Civil Society won the Association of Baltic Studies Best Book of the Year notable mention in 2018. She has published articles about education, culture, and public policy in numerous outlets, including European Education, David Magazine and Tablet. She received fellowships and grants from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and Fulbright. Her passion for Israel came from her historical work on the role that Eastern European Jewish communities played in the founding of the country through today. She has a Ph.D. in education policy from Indiana University and an M.A. in International Education from the George Washington University.