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Despite a 26-percent slash in funding for this year, the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education says it won't cut back on its key programs in a critical time for teaching about the horrors of genocide, anti-Semitism, and other forms of hatred.

Under the New Jersey Department of Education's July 2009 to July 2010 budget, the commission receives about $180,000, compared with $244,000 the previous year, Executive Director Dr. Paul Winkler told The Jewish State.

The funding situation, Winkler said, won't alter any specific educational programs for New Jersey public schools, which are required by the state to teach students about the Holocaust and genocide. Instead, the commission will try to save money through measures like printing less curriculum for schools, stopping travel reimbursement for commission members, salary cuts for part-time workers, and attending fewer conferences.

"We are just going to have to watch our pennies on the logistics, the tools that help us carry out some of the tasks," Winkler said. "We are still going to continue our efforts in teaching."

USA Today reported additional funding cuts for Holocaust education programs in Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee.

With global anti-Semitism on the rise, particularly on the Internet, the 26-year-old commission can't afford to take a step back and let haters get an upper hand, Winkler said. The commission has trained more than 7,000 teachers on the Holocaust from kindergarten through 12th grade, he said, and won't stop there.

"We are going to do everything we can to battle against bias and bigotry currently in places like Darfur, and to teach about the past of the Holocaust and the Armenian genocide," Winkler said.

However, the commission's funding for Holocaust institutes at the college level might be scaled back, Winkler said. Peppy Margolis, director of the Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Raritan Valley Community College, said that the state commission's vigorous promotion of the institute's programming through the Internet and publications has always been just as important as the funding it provided.

"They have lent us support and it has never waned," Margolis said.

Still, the RVCC institute will "have to be creative about finding other ways to get more financial support" in the future, Margolis said. The institute is planning an Oct. 29 discussion about the consequences of cyber-space and cyber-bullying with guest speakers Margit Feldman, a Holocaust survivor and author, and Mark Weitzman of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. This past year, the institute produced a film about the children of Holocaust survivors and hosted former Gov. Christine Todd Whitman in April as part of the annual three-day "Learning Through Experience" program co-sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Somerset, Hunterdon, and Warren Counties.

Winkler said that the Holocaust commission will continue to help college institutes secure speakers and post the institutes' programs on its Web site.

June Chang, language and arts supervisor of the Jersey City public school system who organizes an annual trip to Poland for 11 students to see the remnants of Holocaust destruction first-hand, said that while funding certainly helps, the most important part of Holocaust education is the character values learned in classrooms and hopefully reinforced in homes.

"It should be more about awareness," Chang said of Holocaust education. "It's about learning, and incorporating that learning into our everyday lives."

Chang's program doesn't receive any state money, and instead is funded solely through donations, he said, making this coming year another challenging one in light of the ongoing recession.

Winkler said that the Holocaust commission's funding cut is no different than the 20 to 30 percent decreases slated for many other educational commissions across New Jersey.

"[The commission's situation] is part of the difficulties in the economy," he said.

Creative grassroots efforts are essential as public funding goes down, Margolis said. As an example, she noted the work of Julie Brenner and Jenn Rangnow, two teachers who launched a "Spare Change for Change" fundraiser at Montgomery Middle School in Skillman (getting the idea at an RVCC conference on genocide prevention).

Montgomery students put money in milk jugs and other containers placed in classrooms, then donated leftover lunch money, allowances, and other money they earned or saved to raise more than $2,100 that helped purchase 107 stoves for genocide victims in Darfur.

"Even though we might not have full funding, it's so important when other people take initiative and create their own style and their own technique for funding programming," Margolis said.