La Jolla Country Day student brings Butterfly Project and Holocaust awareness to Dominican Republic

For the first time, a Holocaust remembrance and education program called The Butterfly Project has a presence in the Dominican Republic, thanks largely to Isaac Herman, a student at La Jolla Country Day School.

Over the summer, Isaac spent a month in the island nation raising awareness and attaching about 30 handpainted ceramic butterflies to a mural at a school called La Libertad, with each butterfly representing a child lost between 1938 and 1945 during the Holocaust, Nazi Germany’s drive to exterminate European Jews.

The Butterfly Project was co-founded in 2006 by educator Jan Landau and artist Cheryl Rattner Price at the San Diego Jewish Academy. The pair wanted to take Holocaust education beyond textbooks and bring it to life in a way that could teach about the dangers of hatred and bigotry through art and inspire students to make the world a better place.

Though The Butterfly Project has installations all over the world, Isaac was the first to take it to the Dominican Republic.

“It’s a symbol of resilience and hope to remember the 1.5 million Jewish children murdered during the Holocaust,” Isaac said. “The Butterfly Project is a way we can honor a promise to the survivors of the Holocaust that we will never forget.”

A mural at the La Libertad school in the Dominican Republic is complete with ceramic butterflies installed as part of The Butterfly Project.

(Provided by Rachel Herman)

From mid-June to mid-July, Isaac was onsite with a Jewish summer camp program called Camp Mountain Chai, which seeks to inspire a love of Jewish living through fun, friendship, discovery and exploration, according to its mission statement.

Through the camp, participants are encouraged to carry out a service project. Isaac brought a box of ceramic butterflies for campers to paint to go on a mural painted by campers the year before.

They also taught about the Holocaust to local students, many of whom were unaware of it.

“I think it was meaningful for a group of young Jewish teens to bring The Butterfly Project to a local school in a place that is not as fortunate as we are,” Isaac said. “I also think it’s important to be aware of the past so as not to repeat it, so we wanted to raise awareness about the Holocaust.”

It also was an opportunity to connect with the small population of Jewish people who live in the Dominican Republic.

“After the Holocaust, the Dominican Republic had visas available and were one of the few countries that let Jewish people come, but only 100 people came,” Isaac said. “So there is one temple on the island, and we got to visit that. We got to meet with local Jewish people; that was incredible. It feels good to know that we are everywhere, and it was so cool to see it there.”

La Jolla Country Day School student Isaac Herman (right) greets a local child during a recent trip to the Dominican Republic.

(Provided by Rachel Herman)

Isaac was introduced to The Butterfly Project through an event at La Jolla Country Day in 2018, when, for the first time, the entire school participated in a commemoration of children killed in the Holocaust. The event included speakers, concerts, readings and painting ceramic butterflies and culminated with students forming a huge butterfly on the football field.

In total, more than 2,000 ceramic butterflies were painted by students and staff throughout the day and were converted into a permanent installation on campus. ◆