This interview with Peter Geffen is part of an ongoing series exploring one of the most pressing questions of our time: how do we find meaning in a world that seems increasingly unable to offer it? Two recent articles— and —examine the existential challenges facing contemporary society and ask how each of us might construct a meaningful life within it. Peter Geffen’s story offers one compelling answer: a life rooted in memory, responsibility, and the stubborn insistence on hope.
The interview focused on Peter’s life journey and his involvement in the civil rights movement, which he attributed to his upbringing during the Cold War era and the impact of the Holocaust on his generation. Peter discussed how his experiences and values shaped his activism, including his work with Kivunim, an educational program that promotes understanding and cooperation between different cultures. He emphasized the importance of optimism and hopefulness in driving social change and education, highlighting his upcoming trip to Morocco to participate in a Holocaust education conference. The conversation also touched on the current state of the Middle East and the challenges of fostering hope and understanding in a divided world.
Peter Geffen’s path to social activism was shaped by two defining forces of his youth: the Cold War and the Holocaust. Growing up in that era, exposure to Holocaust documentation—including the film Let My People Go—confronted him early with questions of collective responsibility and the consequences of indifference. That moral urgency translated naturally into engagement with the civil rights movement, a cause he saw as sharing the same core demand: the refusal to stand by in the face of injustice.
His family reinforced that commitment. His father participated in protests against racial segregation in Queens, and figures like Dr. King and Rabbi Heschel modeled what religious conviction looked like in practice. Peter reflects with some nostalgia on that era’s religious community—then activist and left-leaning—contrasting it with its more conservative posture today.
His optimism, which he describes as a deliberate and essential philosophy, draws from a blend of American and Jewish values, formative experiences at camp, and the inspiration of John F. Kennedy—whose assassination left a lasting mark on his generation. For Peter, positive thinking isn’t naïve; it’s a precondition for effective work in the social sphere.
Much of that work now flows through Kivunim, an educational program built around cross-cultural understanding. Peter describes it as cultivating empathy and reducing fear of the “other”—outcomes he sees as achievable through sustained education rather than wishful thinking.
At the time of the interview, Peter was preparing for a trip to Morocco with Kivunim parents, coinciding with a conference in Essaouira organized by the Mimula association, which works to preserve Moroccan Jewish history and heritage—an initiative backed by the Moroccan king, something Peter finds striking in contrast to American attitudes toward minority heritage.
He was also scheduled to speak at a Holocaust education conference for teachers from across the Middle East—an opportunity he frames as essential, particularly given the current fractures in the region. He points to an instructive irony: Hatikvah, Israel’s national anthem, means “the hope”—a word that feels harder to hold onto today, but which Peter insists must remain central to how educators approach their work.
Peter Geffen is an educator and social activist based in New York City. He is the founder of the Abraham Joshua Heschel School in NYC, the founder of the Park Avenue Synagogue High School (now the Rabbi Judah Nadich High School), and the founder and president of The Kivunim Institute, an international Jewish educational travel program.
His career in social activism began when he worked as a civil rights worker for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1965–66, and he has been involved in Arab-Jewish co-existence work since the early 1960s. He also served as Executive Director of the Center for Jewish History in NYC from 2003 to 2005, and was formerly Director of the Israel Experience Program for the CRB Foundation.
Since 1969, Peter has designed and led international travel programs for teenagers and adults. The Kivunim summer teachers’ programs alone have served over 1,600 participants since 1999. In 2012, he received the Covenant Award, the highest recognition given to a Jewish educator.
