Jack Fischel is jewish family services volunteer of the year

Fischel, 79, who retired as chairman of Millersville’s history department in 2003, has served on the boards of the Lancaster City Human Relations Commission, the Lancaster Jewish Community Center, the National Conference for Christians and Jews (now known as the National Conference for Community and Justice) and the Lancaster Community Action Program. He has taught courses at Lancaster County Prison. And in retirement, he continues to teach two courses at Messiah College and offer community lectures.

Why join organizations that often must deal with contentious issues?

“My religion teaches that,” he said. “It is integral to Judaism that you’re responsible for your fellow man.”

Fischel will receive the Jean Feldstein Volunteer of the Year Award from Jewish Family Services Sunday. The presentation will take place at 6 p.m. at Temple Beth El, 1836 Rohrerstown Road. Feldstein was a longtime Temple Beth El member who embodied volunteerism through her temple and community work.

The award, said Jack Paskoff, rabbi at Congregation Shaarai Shomayim in Lancaster, where Fischel is a member, is well deserved.

“(He) has been an asset to the Jewish community and beyond,” Paskoff said.

Jill Weisberg, who is a member of the selection committee, said they looked at what Fischel has accomplished both in and outside the classroom.

“We looked at the realm of things he has contributed to the community,” she said.

Academic accomplishments

Fischel’s volunteer work often is overshadowed by his academic credentials and scholarship. That’s understandable.

He chaired Millersville’s history department from 1985 to 2003, has authored or co-authored nine books on the Holocaust and is the guiding force behind the Conference on the Holocaust and Genocide at Millersville University.

Interestingly, the conference for which he has become known was not something he initially envisioned.

Fischel began his tenure at Millersville in 1965. During the civil rights movement, he developed a class on African-American history, which he taught at the former Jewish Community Center on Oregon Pike.

Larry Pallas, who then was the center’s director, suggested that Fischel “do something on Jewish history.”

It planted a seed. After attending a Holocaust conference in Philadelphia in 1980, he and colleague Reynold Koppel hosted Millersville’s first Holocaust conference. It was such a success they decided to continue it. Over the years, the conference has attracted such well-known speakers as the late Nazi hunter Elie Wiesel and Anne Frank biographer Melissa Miller as well as national attention.

Now held semi-annually, the 35th Conference on the Holocaust and Genocide will be held next April on the Millersville campus.

“It’s the longest and oldest Holocaust conference in the world,” Fischel said.

Volunteer work

Fischel also takes pride in what he has accomplished in the community.

As president of the Community Action Program board in the 1980s, he was instrumental in pushing local agencies to provide winter heating assistance to low-income families. He also played a role in obtaining federal funds for the local food stamps program.

As a member of the Human Relations Commission, he led a protest when white nationalist and anti-Semite David Duke was invited to speak in Lancaster.

For more than 20 years, he taught courses at Lancaster County Prison as part of an inmate education program.

Fischel has previously received awards from the Human Relations Commission and from Millersville University.

And while he doesn’t like people to fuss about him, he appreciates the honor from Jewish Family Services.

“It makes me feel relevant,” he said. It also gives him a sense of satisfaction.

“Doing things for money brings you material things,” he said. “What gives you your moral satisfaction, your spiritual satisfaction? That can only come from helping others.”

His wife, Julie, said the time he spent away from the family while lecturing and attending conferences has been worth it.

“He walks the walk,” she said. With regard to the Holocaust and Genocide Conference, she said, “He’s still committed … to make people understand what really went on.”