The Holocaust Awareness Museum and Education Center, located at 8339 Old York Road in Elkins Park (Cheltenham Township), announced that education director Fabulous Flores has been named the center’s first chief operating officer.

Abby Gilbert, the center’s previous Director of Institutional Advancement, retired effective July 1. Gilbert will be joining HAMEC’s Board of Directors as the Vice President for Institutional Advancement and will be the 2025 Honoree at HAMEC’s annual Gala on December 6. 

“When [Gilbert] announced to us all that she would be retiring, I wanted to step up and be in a more advanced role,” Flores told The Jewish Exponent. “Between the board and [Gilbert], they decided that the organization had grown enough where it was time to have an actual CEO to run the museum.”

HAMEC has seen an 80% increase in its programming in response to the Israel-Hamas war and rising antisemitism.

“Fabulous hopes to incorporate the story of Black victims into the field of Holocaust studies in order to provide a holistic study of the Third Reich,” HAMEC’s blog said when Flores was first hired in 2023.

Lise Marlowe, an elementary teacher in the Cheltenham School District who previously served as HAMEC’s program and outreach director, will take over Flores’ role.

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Photos: HAMEC