Claire Goldstein Simmons

Photograph Courtesy of Sandy Kavalier

Claire Goldstein Simmons is the child of survivors.

Born in Czechoslovakia, her family emigrated to Israel in 1949 and lived in Hadera from 1949-1956. The Goldstein family came to the United States in 1956. A graduate of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, she established the Hebrew Department at American University in Washington, DC. and has taught Jewish history and the Holocaust for over twenty-five years.

From 1980-1994, she served as the Chairperson of the Jewish History Department at the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in Rockville, MD. Claire has written and lectured widely on Jewish civilization, American Jewish memory and the Holocaust. She is a fluent speaker of Hebrew and Yiddish.