Jacob Ari Labendz directs the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. He teaches courses in related topics, as well as Jewish studies. Dr. Labendz holds a Ph.D. in history from Washington University in St. Louis. He writes about the history of Jews in and from Central Europe in the twentieth century and contributes to scholarly discussions of nationalism, the Cold War, contemporary antisemitism, Holocaust memory, and Jewish food cultures. In addition to a number of articles and reviews, he published two edited volumes, Jewish Veganism and Vegetarianism: Studies and New Directions with Shmuly Yanklowitz (SUNY, 2019) and Jewish Property after 1945: Cultures and Economies of Ownership, Loss, Recovery, and Transfer (Routledge, 2017). He is currently collaborating with Rebekah Klein-Pejšová on an edited volume focused on the movement and meetings of Jewish people and artifacts across Cold-War boundaries. Dr. Labendz is passionate about integrating Holocaust and genocide studies into curricula and cocurricular activities across Ramapo College, and to serving the northern New Jersey and southern New York region.

Colleen Tambuscio comes to Ramapo with thirty-eight years of teaching experience. She began her career teaching the deaf for Bergen County Special Services and first taught Holocaust education to her deaf students for seventeen years. She continued her career at New Milford High School in Bergen County, New Jersey for 22 years. During her teaching career, she developed a semester-long Holocaust course and annually travelled to the U. S. Holocaust Memorial Museum for a two-day seminar with students.  Since 1998, she has taken students to Germany, Czech Republic, and Poland to study the Holocaust accomplishing twenty-one student trips.

In 1998, Colleen was named as a Mandel Fellow at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (currently Museum Teacher Fellow) and has served as a U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Regional Museum Educator since 2002. Since 2002, Colleen has been a board member of the RCNJ Center for Holocaust and Genocide Education. Colleen earned an MA in Jewish-Christian Studies and Holocaust Education from Seton Hall University in 2006.  In 2010, she traveled to Nahariya, Israel with the UJA Federation’s Partnership 2000 Program to develop a dialogue between Israeli and her own public high school students. She is the founder and President of the New Jersey Council of Holocaust Educators, a national professional-development organization for educators interested in teaching the Holocaust and genocide.  In 2015, Colleen worked with Alexandra Zapruder, author of Salvaged Pages: Young Writers’ Diaries of the Holocaust, to create a multimedia edition of the book and lessons associated with the diaries which are housed on the Facing History and Ourselves website. Colleen was honored by Princeton University in 2017 as a Distinguished New Jersey Secondary Teacher. In October of 2021, she was appointed by Governor Murphy to the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education.

Isabella Apgar, Ramapo College of New Jersey ’25, is a history major with a minor in human rights and genocide studies. She is the partnership intern for the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Ramapo College. She is a Phi Alpha Theta history honor society member and has studied abroad and interned in Rome, Italy.

Keya Naik, Ramapo College of New Jersey ‘27, is a nursing major with a minor in crime and justice studies. She is the on campus intern for the Center of Holocaust and Genocide Studies. She is also Vice President of the South Asian dance team on campus.