Students lean forward in their seats as Elijah Alexander performs the one-act solo play “The Mitzvah Project,” absorbing a lesson he says they desperately need.
When the performance and presentation concludes, a wave of young hands rises as students eagerly engage with Alexander — and each other — about concerns in the world, their school and their homes.
Alexander, who plays Atticus, a Roman soldier in “The Chosen,” said his experience with the project has been “the cornerstone, the foundation of my life’s work.”
Launched in 2014 by Roger Grunwald, whose mother survived the Holocaust, “The Mitzvah Project” aims to educate high school and college students about the Holocaust and the modern spread of “othering” in America.
“The Mitzvah Project” consists of three parts. It begins with a one-act solo play set during the Holocaust, following the lives of two German men known as Mischlinge — people of partial Jewish ancestry — and explores themes of prejudice and humanity.
After the performance, presenters such as Alexander share their personal connections to the Holocaust and expand on the play’s narrative, linking World War II history to American history and contemporary issues of racism, antisemitism and prejudice.
To conclude, presenters open a Q&A session, allowing students to ask questions, explore their reactions to the material and dig deeper into the presentation’s themes.
The Q&A is Alexander’s favorite part. While engaging with young people, he gets to “encourage conversation and curiosity.”
“My goal is to welcome everyone into the conversation, and that’s what this program is about,” Alexander said. “This program is about including everyone, making everyone feel seen, heard, known, acknowledged, validated, welcome at the table.”
Getting involved in ‘The Mitzvah Project
Alexander became involved in the project in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and has since performed “The Mitzvah Project” in nearly two dozen schools across the country, including in California, Colorado, Florida and Texas.
During that time, he bought a home in southern Utah, positioning himself between Los Angeles and the Utah location where he films “The Chosen.”
“I fell in love with the area,” he said of moving to Utah. “It’s been a very special, very sacred place.”
Utah has also been the state where Alexander has had the “most impactful” experiences with “The Mitzvah Project,” bringing the program to Bountiful High School and The Salt Lake Center for Science Education.
“I’ve been spending so much time in Utah, but having done these (two) programs, I realized, ‘Wow, I’m right where I should be,’” Alexander said.
“The Q&A sessions in both these high schools in northern Utah, there were a lot of disgruntled, confused, distressed young people — being bullied, being harassed, being discriminated against,” he continued. “These students were just really open and honest, and it was very moving.”
“Right off the bat, with the entire school present, it was very personal, and it was so honest. To me that just indicates a dire need for kids to throw their voices into the room, to be seen, to be heard, to be acknowledged, to be respected.”
Alexander said his role in the hit biblical drama “The Chosen” has enabled him to have vulnerable conversations with students — many of whom watch the series at home with their families — and help young people understand “what their responsibilities are, and how to treat each other and how to love themselves.”
In Utah schools, a lack of diversity among students can lead to confusion, Alexander said, adding, “People don’t understand and get to know people of other races and colors and religions and creeds and cultures.”
“There is a concern amongst the student body and a yearning for diversity, inclusion, empathy, understanding, embracing other cultures, learning about them,” he added.
Alexander said he encourages students facing bullying, discrimination and other forms of cruelty to engage in peaceful conversations rooted in empathy, understanding and love, as well as to take responsibility for their actions.
He believes these conversations encourage “kids to ask each other (questions) and to be comfortable sharing their story and to be celebrated for their stories.”
‘Holocaust Studies is severely lacking’
During the COVID-19 pandemic, in search of an opportunity to redefine what contribution he would make to the world, Alexander moved to Vail, Colorado, to teach at an English as a second language school, an experience he described as life-changing.
“Working with these young people, I realized how deeply in need they all were, how confused, especially with living through and coming of age during a pandemic, when everything was so limited — just a very confused, desperate, isolated community of young people," Alexander said.
As an educator, Alexander noticed the same gap in Holocaust education that Grunwald set out to address with “The Mitzvah Project” nearly a decade earlier.
So when Alexander came across Grunwald’s post seeking additional actors to present the project, the material immediately “resonated” with him.
“I loved the idea of the educational component attached to it,” Alexander said. “Holocaust Studies is severely lacking in this country.”
Grunwald, a lifelong performer, developed the project to both honor his mother, who survived the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz, and provide meaningful Holocaust education in America.
The most valuable form of Holocaust education, Grunwald said, is when survivors of the Holocaust share their eyewitness accounts with students. But as the last generation of Holocaust survivors passes away, their stories can be carried on by their descendants.
After presenting “The Mitzvah Project” in more than one hundred schools across America, Grunwald now works behind the scenes, having expanded the program to include three actors, including Alexander, all of whom have personal connections to the Holocaust.
“I didn’t want them just to be a mouthpiece. I want them to have a story, a history of a friend or family (member),” Grunwald said.
“It’s not a talk by itself. It’s not a book by itself. All of it has value,” he added. “The power of theater, the power of performance, can be very transformative and impactful.”
For Alexander, the personal element of his presentation lies in sharing the story of his uncle, a Holocaust survivor who brought his brother — Alexander’s father — from Israel to America, where he later met and married Alexander’s mother.
“He gave my father a chance at making a living and me a chance at life,” Alexander said. “So I’m there and standing in front of them, and I’m a living, breathing example that (the Holocaust) happened.”
A staple in schools
The long-term vision for “The Mitzvah Project” is to become a staple of Holocaust education in schools across the country.
The program is a nonprofit funded entirely by donations, so it costs nothing for a school to host. “The Mitzvah Project” is performed in school on an on-call basis, and once invited, schools typically invite it back.
“The whole point of telling a story like this is to develop understanding of where we came from, so that we don’t repeat the same mistakes again,” Alexander said.
The brilliant thing about the program, Alexander said, is that it only takes one person and limited materials to pull off, making it easy to travel. More than 500 educators and schools are reached each year.
“I want this to spread as far and wide as absolutely possible,” Grunwald said. “The mission, and why it is we’re doing this, is to make the world and America a better place.”