Sr. Gemma Del Duca Honored with Endowment Fund by Westmoreland Jewish Community Council
The Westmoreland Jewish Community Council created a new endowment fund at Seton Hill this fall to recognize Sister Gemma DelDuca for her decades of work. Rabbi Sara Perman, Marsha Wong and Marilyn Davis represented the WJCC at a surprise tea for Sister Gemma at Caritas Christi in November to inform her of this honor.
The WJCC chose to create this fund to thank her for her tireless dedication to the work of the National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education at Seton Hill and to the Jewish community. Sister Gemma, along with fellow Sister of Charity of Seton Hill Mary Noel Kernan, co-founded the NCCHE in 1987. The Center’s mission is to promote the teaching of the Holocaust at all levels of Catholic education and to enhance Catholic-Jewish relations.
The Sister Gemma DelDuca, SC Jewish Friendship Fund Endowment for The National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education will help support yearly programming and events offered by the NCCHE such as Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), the annual Kristallnacht interfaith service, and JFilm, Pittsburgh’s annual festival showcasing Jewish-themed independent feature films from around the globe.
“The Westmoreland Jewish Community Council found it increasingly difficult to support programming in the Jewish community as the community had changed,” said Rabbi Sara Rae Perman. “We had always supported activities in collaboration with Seton Hill University's National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education, specifically Kristallnacht, Yom HaShoah and JFilm, which brought a Holocaust related film to Seton Hill. Sister Gemma has long been a friend of our community and we felt this was an appropriate way to honor her and continue to support activities that benefit the Center and the Jewish community.”
Sister Gemma continues her work with the NCCHE today as Director Emerita, even after officially retiring in 2015, and she has been lauded by numerous organizations for her work in the field of Holocaust education - both Catholic and Jewish. She was the first non-Israeli to receive the Excellence in Holocaust Education Award from Yad Vashem and has also been honored for this work as a member of the 2024 class of Distinguished Daughters of Pennsylvania and as a Seton Hill Distinguished Alumna.
Del Duca grew up in Greensburg in a Catholic family and entered the Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill in 1956. Her life and her ministry took an abrupt turn in 1975 when she went to Israel to study Hebrew and the Jewish roots of Christianity. In 1977, Sister Gemma joined with Father Isaac Jacob of Saint Vincent Archabbey to establish a center for Jewish-Catholic understanding in Israel leading to the foundation of Tel Gamaliel in Bet Shemesh.
For more than three decades, Sister Gemma resided in Israel and collaborated with Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, on programming for the NCCHE. On a return trip to Greensburg, Sister Gemma began contemplating how she could take the work she was doing in Israel and collaborate in some way with Seton Hill. She and Sister Mary Noel approached then-Seton Hill President JoAnne Boyle with the idea for the National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education at Seton Hill, one of the first such Centers in the country.
The WJCC chose to create this fund to thank her for her tireless dedication to the work of the National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education at Seton Hill and to the Jewish community. Sister Gemma, along with fellow Sister of Charity of Seton Hill Mary Noel Kernan, co-founded the NCCHE in 1987. The Center’s mission is to promote the teaching of the Holocaust at all levels of Catholic education and to enhance Catholic-Jewish relations.
The Sister Gemma DelDuca, SC Jewish Friendship Fund Endowment for The National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education will help support yearly programming and events offered by the NCCHE such as Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), the annual Kristallnacht interfaith service, and JFilm, Pittsburgh’s annual festival showcasing Jewish-themed independent feature films from around the globe.
“The Westmoreland Jewish Community Council found it increasingly difficult to support programming in the Jewish community as the community had changed,” said Rabbi Sara Rae Perman. “We had always supported activities in collaboration with Seton Hill University's National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education, specifically Kristallnacht, Yom HaShoah and JFilm, which brought a Holocaust related film to Seton Hill. Sister Gemma has long been a friend of our community and we felt this was an appropriate way to honor her and continue to support activities that benefit the Center and the Jewish community.”
Sister Gemma continues her work with the NCCHE today as Director Emerita, even after officially retiring in 2015, and she has been lauded by numerous organizations for her work in the field of Holocaust education - both Catholic and Jewish. She was the first non-Israeli to receive the Excellence in Holocaust Education Award from Yad Vashem and has also been honored for this work as a member of the 2024 class of Distinguished Daughters of Pennsylvania and as a Seton Hill Distinguished Alumna.
Del Duca grew up in Greensburg in a Catholic family and entered the Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill in 1956. Her life and her ministry took an abrupt turn in 1975 when she went to Israel to study Hebrew and the Jewish roots of Christianity. In 1977, Sister Gemma joined with Father Isaac Jacob of Saint Vincent Archabbey to establish a center for Jewish-Catholic understanding in Israel leading to the foundation of Tel Gamaliel in Bet Shemesh.
For more than three decades, Sister Gemma resided in Israel and collaborated with Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, on programming for the NCCHE. On a return trip to Greensburg, Sister Gemma began contemplating how she could take the work she was doing in Israel and collaborate in some way with Seton Hill. She and Sister Mary Noel approached then-Seton Hill President JoAnne Boyle with the idea for the National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education at Seton Hill, one of the first such Centers in the country.