Panel Presentation:
• Cold Peace vs. Hot War: Memory, Moral Education, and the Work of Standing Against Hate
Panelists: Susanne Seperson and Bill Tinglin
(60 min)

Abstract:

In an era of rising antisemitism, polarized public discourse, and normalized cruelty, “peace” can feel like an all-or-nothing fantasy. This panel argues for cold peace — imperfect, vigilant, and ethically sustained — as a pragmatic alternative to hot war and asks what psychohistory can teach about interrupting cycles of hatred before they escalate into collective violence. Across Holocaust legacy and the moral imagination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we return to a unifying question: what enables people to locate shared moral ground — dignity, truth-seeking, responsibility — rather than organizing life around fear, conformity, and division.

Speaking as a second-generation daughter of Holocaust survivors, Susanne Seperson argues that the Holocaust must be taught not only as history, but as explicit moral education — because prejudice is learned, socially rewarded, and transmitted across generations. She offers five actionable “lessons for living” (truth-seeking, vigilance, emotional strength, optimism, and refusal of prejudice) as a blueprint for pursuing cold peace over escalating conflict.

Bill Tinglin frames Holocaust memory and Dr. King’s moral vision as “one moral truth”: justice requires witnesses, and silence in moral crisis becomes complicity. He argues that Holocaust education is at a threshold—survivors are fewer, attention is fragmented — and proposes modern pedagogy that preserves empathy through responsibly designed interactive, digital learning experiences. The panel is moderated and includes audience discussion.

Keywords: antisemitism, civic courage, cold peace, Holocaust education, moral education, neurobiology, psychohistory, witnessing

Short Bios:

Susanne Bleiberg Seperson, PhD, is a retired professor of sociology and represents Generations United, a non-governmental organization (NGO) at the United Nations. She is Vice-Chair of the Committee on Intergenerational Solidarity and a founder and Chair of the NGO Committee to End Antisemitism and Promote Peace. She can be contacted at .

Bill Tinglin is an education innovator and social-impact leader whose work bridges technology, ethics, and historical memory in public-facing learning. He founded School News Nationwide (SNN) in 1993, integrating journalism and media literacy into school communities, and in 2005 launched Words of Bonds, an initiative fostering dialogue between African American and Jewish communities through interviews with Holocaust survivors and Black elders. He is the creator of the Tour for Tolerance, a high-tech mobile learning platform that uses immersive tools to teach empathy, inclusion, and moral responsibility. Tinglin collaborates with international partners on education and anti-extremism initiatives and has led humanitarian and cultural-heritage projects across multiple regions, including work connected to the United Nations and global civil-society networks. He can be contacted at .