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Public Profile

Richard Hirschhaut
Richard Hirschhaut

    Richard S. Hirschhaut has served as executive director of the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center since 2004. He led the broad-based community campaign to establish this international human rights and education center in the Chicago suburb of Skokie.

    Dedicated on April 19, 2009, the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is a 65,000 square-foot facility committed to applying the universal lessons of the Holocaust to issues of intolerance and genocide in our world today. The new center reaches students, teachers, parents and children across the Midwest, educating them about this tragic period in history and alerting them to the dangers of unchallenged bigotry. 

    Mr. Hirschhaut brings to the museum nearly three decades of human rights leadership, including over twenty years as a senior staff member of the Anti-Defamation League. 

    As the organization's midwest director, ADL's Chicago office created the National Youth Leadership Mission, which brings diverse high school students to Washington, D.C. to visit the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and meet with civil rights leaders. He also initiated a series of annual African American-Jewish Seders to unite these communities in sharing the messages of freedom. A consultant to law enforcement agencies, municipalities, and professional associations on issues of extremism and the impact of hate crime, Mr. Hirschhaut has brought anti-bias training to prisons, police and fire departments, churches and schools. 

    Mr. Hirschhaut has led delegations of elected officials, campus and community leaders on fact finding missions to the Middle East and Central Europe. He has commented on human rights issues for such publications as Time, Newsweek, USA Today, the New YorkTimes, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the Chicago Tribune, and has appeared on local and national news programs. 

    A graduate of Tulane University, Mr. Hirschhaut studied also at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and holds degrees in International Relations and Judaic Studies. He is a recipient of the ADL's Milton A. Senn Award for Professional Excellence. In 1999, Mr. Hirschhaut was appointed as a founding member of the State Commission on Discrimination and Hate Crimes. In 2000, he received the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Community Leadership Award and in 2003 was recognized by the City of Chicago Commission on Human Relations with its annual Human Relations Award. In 2009 he was named a "Jewish Chicagoan of the Year" by the Chicago Jewish News

     

    Schedule29 Mar 2024