Righteous Among the Neighbors: Josh Andy

Righteous Among the Neighbors is a project of the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh that honors non-Jewish Pittsburghers who support the Jewish community and stand up against antisemitism. In partnership with the LIGHT Education Initiative and Mt. Lebanon High School, student journalists interview honorees and write profiles about their efforts. To learn more, visit hcofpgh.org/righteous-among-the-neighbors.

Based on Josh Andy’s work with Holocaust education and genocide awareness, he is a member of the 2024 class of Righteous Among the Neighbors honorees. Righteous Among the Neighbors was founded by the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh to recognize allies for their work in defeating antisemitism.

Andy’s journey to Holocaust education started when he was studying for his doctorate in Russian and Eastern European history at the University of Birmingham in England. During his studies, he felt something “clicked” for him religiously.

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“Growing up as a Christian, it didn’t necessarily fit me,” Andy said. “When I started exploring history, I was teaching and studying Russian history and sort of looking at Russian Jews throughout history, and started to learn more about Judaism itself and Jewish culture and life. Something clicked that I had been looking for in terms of the values and spirituality.”

Sure enough, as Andy deepened his connection to Judaism, a DNA test revealed that he had Jewish ancestry from Eastern Europe. This discovery further enriched his journey.

After graduating with a doctorate in 2011, Andy began teaching at Winchester Thurston School. He teaches a unique class about genocide with an emphasis on the Holocaust.

“One of the reasons and ways I like to teach about the Holocaust is to talk about Jewish life, because before the Holocaust, there was this vibrant Jewish experience in Europe, and there are those trying to bring those types of things back to Europe today — that feeling, that sort of individual, personal connection to Judaism, Jewish culture and Jewish life,” Andy said.

Andy adapts his curriculum each year depending on his students’ passions.

“I want to make sure that each one of my students, at some point, sees themselves in the classroom, whether that’s through a speaker that I bring in, or a reading, or something that we cover, some children’s story, or something that they somehow see themselves in it,” Andy said.

One year, for example, he had a student whose sister was adopted from Guatemala and she wanted to investigate whether the Guatemalan Civil War was considered a genocide. Andy brought in local scholars and had a discussion with journalists from the 1960s through the 1990s who covered major trials in Guatemala.

Andy is often surprised by the personal connections his students have with the Holocaust.

“One of the things that really sticks with me each year is the Jewish students in my class [who] have a connection with grandparents or great-grandparents, whether they came out of Europe before the Holocaust or after,” he said. “Or some of my students’ parents are Russian Jews who fled the Soviet Union in the 1980s. So, those personal family stories really connect as well. That’s what I try to teach through.”

To Andy, personal experience is the most important way to learn about the Holocaust, not only in the classroom but in outside environments as well. For the last 13 years, he has been an adviser to Classrooms Without Borders, a nonprofit affiliated with the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh. Every March, CWB leads a service trip to Israel and each summer it leads a trip throughout Poland.

Andy believes that these trips take learning to a new level.

“When you learn about the Warsaw Ghetto, you are standing in the places where it was, looking at the wall, looking at Adam Cherniakov’s house, who was the head of the Jewish Council,” Andy said. “As you learn and investigate how they made decisions themselves, you are standing in the places where that happened.”

Andy tries to bring these experiences back to his classroom, but it doesn’t compare to being in these places in person.

“I try to bring as much as I can back into my classroom, through pictures, through testimony, through news stories that I know, through friends,” Andy said. “You can learn about Auschwitz from the textbook or from me telling you about it in class, but nothing really can prepare you or recreate how you learn as you walk into Auschwitz. There is nothing like those experiences.”

Andy believes these are critical educational moments between students and teachers.

“It’s a powerful moment when borders between teacher and student break down, and you’re learning side by side, and you’re learning a really emotional history,” Andy said. “I think it’s important and powerful to show that and let your students see you as being vulnerable.”

Andy said he will never be done learning.

“I want to investigate more,” Andy said. “I want to learn more about the past. I want to write this. I want to disseminate that knowledge so we can look to the past to understand our future — our future and where we’re heading.”

Andy credits the Pittsburgh community for the opportunities he’s been given, from teaching young kids about the Holocaust Center to helping young Jewish teens embrace their identity and to uphold it.

“I see that as, you know, the importance of giving that back,” Andy said. “I’ve had these wonderful experiences, and education is a really big part of that. I think it’s very hard to use education sometimes to change people’s minds. I think you have to be able to reach them where they are, and try to tell those human stories and make those connections in order to get them to the facts.” PJC

Scarlett Sweeney is a junior at Mt. Lebanon High School.