Stockton University received a $100,000 gift from Jack and Bethanie Gorny to establish The Gorny Family Fund for Understanding and Confronting Antisemitism, creating a new annual lecture series that will bring world-renowned experts to campus.
The endowment honors Jack Gorny’s parents, Eva and Morris Gorny, who were Polish Holocaust survivors. The family emigrated to the United States in 1949 from a displaced persons camp in Germany when Jack Gorny was a child, settling in southern New Jersey where his parents eventually operated a Vineland poultry farm and later opened Delsea Yard Goods.
Jack Gorny, who previously served for 12 years as the chairperson of Stockton’s Sara and Sam Schoffer Holocaust Resource Center (HRC) Executive Committee, and Bethanie Gorny, former president of Jewish Family Service of Atlantic and Cape May Counties, made the donation to address growing concerns over contemporary prejudice.
“I have grave concerns for the well-being of Jews in this country in the future,” Jack Gorny said. “I agonize over the future of my grandchildren, and I worry that they may be faced with this pernicious ideology, which sadly shows no signs of abating.”
HRC Director Irvin Moreno-Rodriguez noted that plans are already underway to launch the inaugural lecture series on campus this year. “We have to be cognizant that the fight continues today and will continue tomorrow and for decades to come,” Moreno-Rodriguez said. “We must be the light in these dark places.”
Stockton Executive Vice President Terricita Sass praised the family’s enduring dedication to education and remembrance during a campus announcement alongside university and foundation leadership.
“Your family’s story is one of perseverance, courage and a deep belief in the power of education,” Sass said. “It is a story that deserves to be remembered, understood and carried forward.”
