How a mentor helped pave the way for the new leader of Stockton University's Holocaust resource center
GALLOWAY, N.J. (CBS) — For the first time in New Jersey history, a person of Hispanic origin will run one of the state's largest Holocaust resource centers.
Last month, Irvin Moreno-Rodriguez was named the new executive director of Stockton University's Sara and Sam Schoffer Holocaust Resource Center.
He succeeded his mentor Gail Rosenthal, who died suddenly in October 2023.
"She practiced what she preached," Moreno-Rodriguez said. "There was never a student that she shied away from who had a large problem."
In the summer of 2011, Rosenthal learned of a recent high school graduate working at his father's pizza shop, Moreno-Rodriguez.
"She had heard I wasn't planning on going to college," Moreno-Rodriguez said. "Gail couldn't accept that, did not want to accept that."
That summer, she took him on a tour of Stockton University, introducing him to the Schoffer Holocaust Resource Center.
"She said, 'Big ideas start small. Come to Stockton, see how you feel, I'll mentor you for the four years that you're there, and we'll see what you can do,'" Moreno-Rodriguez said.
He ended up doing a lot at the center, working his way up from a student volunteer to assistant director.
He said hearing the stories of Holocaust survivors' struggles immigrating to the United States reminded him of his own family's journey.
"As a children of immigrants, parents who are from Mexico, that story, that message resonated with me," Moreno-Rodriguez said.
As executive director of the center, he hopes to live up to his mentor's legacy.
"I know what she wanted. I know where she wanted the center to go," Moreno-Rodriguez said. "Now it's my responsibility to keep remembering the Holocaust survivors of southern New Jersey."