Board / Management

BOARD / MANAGEMENT

Board

Chair - Jeremy Smith

Jeremy is Managing Director of Wellington-based hospitality group, Trinity, which owns hotels, restaurants and bars across New Zealand. Jeremy is also Chair of the Hospitality Association (Wellington branch) and on the main Hospitality New Zealand board.

He has been involved in the Wellington Jewish community for a number of years, having served on the Boards of Moriah School, Temple Sinai and HCNZ (including serving as Chair since 2015).

Jeremy has primary responsibility for HCNZ’s fundraising activities.

Jeremy is a qualified Chartered Accountant, and has a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce and Accounting.

Deputy Chair - Dianne Davis

joined the HCNZ Board in September 2017, and has particular responsibility for Marketing and Communications.

After a 30-year corporate and consulting career in Australia and the UK, Dianne returned to live permanently in New Zealand in May 2017. In her corporate life, Dianne held Marketing Director and senior Business Development roles with some of Australia/UK’s largest financial and professional services organisations (Australian Stock Exchange, Westpac, PwC, Ernst Young).

As a Consultant, Dianne ran a successful Sydney-based strategic marketing consultancy for 18 years, advising large-medium corporates and professional services firms. She also served as a Director on the Boards of several Australian non-profit organisations.

Dianne has a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Political Science from Victoria University of Wellington and a Masters in International Relations from Duke University,
North Carolina, USA.

Treasurer - Jenny Livschitz

Jenny was appointed Treasurer in September 2017 and as the lead for our Policy, Process and Administration activities. A qualified Chartered Accountant with over 25 years’ experience, Jenny has worked in a range of financial management and leadership roles, principally in the public sector.

Born in South Africa, Jenny and her family moved to New Zealand in 1997, initially to Auckland and then Wellington in 2017.

Jenny and her family were deeply involved in the Beth Shalom Progressive Jewish community in Auckland, where she was a member of the Board of Management for a number of years. They are now active members of the Wellington progressive community

Both Jenny and her husband have family that escaped from Europe during the Holocaust. Jenny considers it is an an honour and a privilege to volunteer as Treasurer, in support of HCNZ’s vision and mission.

Board Members

Dr. Ann Beaglehole

is co-lead of our Governance and Strategy portfolio.

Anne was appointed to the Board of HCNZ in August 2014. She is a writer and historian, currently researching for Waitangi Tribunal district inquiries. She has held senior analyst roles in the public service, including Te Puni Kokiri (Ministry of Maori Development) and the Office of Ethnic Affairs.

Her publications include: “A Small Price to Pay” and “Facing the Past” about refugees from Nazism settling in New Zealand; “Far from the Promised Land” about being Jewish in New Zealand; and “Refuge New Zealand”, a history of New Zealand’s response to refugees and asylum seekers.

Marlene Levine

A HCNZ volunteer since 2008, Marlene is researching the experiences of her father, who survived the Holocaust in a Nazi forced labour camp in Algeria. Marlene became an Educator at HCNZ in 2013, and attended the 2017 Yad Vashem seminar for educators.

Born in Morocco and raised in the USA, Marlene moved to New Zealand in 1975, where she taught anthropology and sociology at Victoria University. A Senior Analyst with the Ministry of Social Development for 26 years, Marlene is now a researcher with Massey University.

Marlene also sits on the Board of Directors of the Wellington Jewish Community Centre (including serving as Deputy Chair and Director of Education and Youth), and the Committees of the Chevra Kadisha, the Council of Jewish Women and Kia Ora Torah.

Rick Sahar

is responsible for coordinating our external Partnership and Relationship activities.

Rick was born in Michigan, USA, to Holocaust survivor parents. He lived in Israel for 11 years before arriving in New Zealand in 1981.

Rick worked in the recording industry for 12 years and is now in his 33rd year as an award-winning entertainer. A Board member of two local Wellington community trusts and two Jewish community committees, Rick led groups of New Zealand high school teachers to Yad Vashem in 2015 and 2017 for a 3-week intensive seminar in Holocaust studies on behalf of HCNZ.

Rick is involved in HCNZ education and outreach programmes, delivering the testimony of his parents' Holocaust survival to high school students throughout New Zealand.

Chris Harris

joined the HCNZ Board in August 2015 and is currently our National Director of Education. Formerly, the teacher in charge of History at Onehunga High School in Auckland, Chris has been teaching for 12 years. He graduated from Otago University with a degree in History and Political Studies.

Chris is the staff representative on his school’s Board of Trustees, and has also worked with people with disabilities and at-risk youth in various capacities. Chris was a member of the 2015 Yad Vashem educators who travelled to Israel in January to study Holocaust education.

Chris believes strongly in the legacy of educating students in Holocaust, genocide and human rights.

Justin Thompson

joined the Board in January 2017, and is responsible for our IT/Technology activities, as well as assisting with HCNZ education.

Justin is Head of Department of Social Science at Oxford Area School in North Canterbury and has been teaching for 15 years. He graduated from Canterbury University with a degree in Science, specialising in Geography.

Justin was a member of the 2015 Yad Vashem educators who travelled to Israel in January to study Holocaust education. Justin believes strongly in Holocaust education, and its importance to New Zealand and human rights.

Mary Morris

joined the Board in 2016. She has key responsibility for managing the HCNZ Centre in terms of its physical requirements and assets.

Mary has a background in education and museums, having taught English in NZ and the UK, and worked as an Education Officer and Director in museums in Hutt City and Wellington, respectively.

Mary has overseen education, exhibition and public programmes as a museum Director, with a particular interest in the organisation of archives, and the preservation and conservation of artefacts. Mary believes it is essential they remain accessible and available as a witness to past events and as an on-going basis for future research.

Irene Buxton

leads our Events activities.

She has been a volunteer with HCNZ since 2007. Her parents were refugees from Chemnitz, Germany, who came to New Zealand in 1938.

Irene has developed a strong interest in HCNZ’s education portfolio, especially adult education programmes. She has a background in education, including working as a Lecturer at Massey University.

Irene has an MA in English and a Post-Graduate Diploma in teaching English as a second language from Victoria University. In 2017, she assisted with the first 6-week Adult Education Programme developed in conjunction with Victoria University’s Department of Continuing Education.

Irene has developed a monthly discussion series called L'Dor Va Dor which offers talks on a range of topics relating to Jewish life

Giacomo Lichtner

Dr Giacomo Lichtner is Associate Professor of History and Film at Victoria University of Wellington, where he has worked since migrating to New Zealand from Italy, in 2003.

Giacomo has dedicated his career to studying the memory and representation of the Holocaust, publishing widely on the subject, including Film and the Shoah in France and Italy (Vallentine-Mitchell: 2008; 2015) and Fascism in Italian Cinema: the Politics and Aesthetics of Memory (Palgrave: 2013). Giacomo shares the Holocaust Centre's commitment to Holocaust education, and looks forward to the opportunity to engage with Holocaust discourses outside of academia.

Miriam Bookman

Miriam was born and raised in Auckland and has been involved in the Jewish Community through Kadimah School, Bnei Akiva youth group, and LIMMUD NZ festival of learning. Miriam currently lives in Wellington where she practised as a public lawyer at Russell McVeagh for two and a half years and now works as a policy analyst at the Ministry of Education.

Her mother descends from Salonican Jews who immigrated to the UK in the 1920s amidst antisemitism. Her father descends from Russian Jews who lived in a (now demolished) shtetl called Klykoliai in today's Lithuania, where her great-grandfather escaped conscription.

Miriam is active in her support for the refugee community. She volunteers for Community Law on Refugee and Immigration advice sessions, and is an advocate for a refugee family going through the reunification process. Miriam also coordinates a mentoring programme, with the support of the Astor Foundation, for women with refugee backgrounds studying in Wellington. She has a keen interest in human rights and it is a privilege for her to be working alongside the talented and dedicated group of volunteers and staff at the Holocaust Centre.

Julie Cleaver

Julie currently works as a lecturer in journalism at the Auckland University of Technology and studies a Bachelor of Law part-time.

Julie is of Canadian-Jewish and New Zealand-Catholic heritage and says she hopes to use her legal and journalistic skills to help stand up for human rights abuses and global injustices.

She is keen to help the Centre in any way she can - particularly in the field of communications.

Management

Education – Chris Harris, National Director of Education
education@holocaustcentre.org.nz

Operations, Administration & Volunteering – Sarah Williams, National Administration Manager
officeadmin@holocaustcentre.org.nz