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When Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno was Monmouth County Sheriff, Rabbi Laibel Schapiro told her she had much to learn about Judaism. So it was natural for her to do an Internet search upon learning of her woman of valor award from the Jewish federation.

Guadagno found the "eshet chayil" text, and said she discovered that "I'm not like those women in that proverb" because she doesn't spend enough time with her family and her community. Nevertheless, receiving the award from the Community Relations Committee (CRC) of the Jewish Federation of Monmouth County on March 8 was a part of Guadagno's ongoing Jewish community education.

"I accept it with the knowledge that I have a lot to learn," Guadagno said of the CRC's woman of valor award at the Ruth Hyman Jewish Community Center in Deal Park.

The CRC also gave a community service award to Al Zager, president of the Holocaust, Genocide & Human Rights Education Center at Brookdale Community College (BCC), before screenings and a panel discussion at its sixth annual Holocaust Genocide Film Education Program, this year called "The Road to Recovery and Reconciliation." Attendees viewed "Children of the Third Reich," which documents meetings between children of Holocaust survivors and children of Nazi leaders, and "My Neighbor, My Killer," which explores the Gacaca community court system that since 2001 has tried Hutus for their crimes against Tutsis during the 1994 Rwandan Genocide.

It was fitting that the federation honored Guadagno and Zager, experts in law and justice, on the night it showed two films exploring those topics, said panelist Jane Denny, director of education at BCC's Holocaust and genocide center.

A former assistant United States attorney, assistant state attorney general, and Rutgers School of Law professor before being elected Monmouth County Sheriff in 2007, Guadagno was certainly an expert in law but not anywhere near an expert in Jewish tradition three years ago, saying she "knew nothing." But since then, Guadagno "learned so much that the rabbi became the chaplain of the Monmouth County Sheriff's Office," she said of Schapiro, director of Chabad of the Shore in Long Branch.

When three synagogues in Deal and Long Branch received bomb threats last August, Guadagno said her office deployed about 20 officers to the sites because she knew how important those institutions are for the community.

"She's not only a woman of valor, but a woman of amazing strength and courage," Toby Shylit Mack, CRC chair, said of Guadagno.

After rattling off Guadagno's list of accomplishments, Shylit Mack expressed the federation's pride in honoring a truly local leader who still lives in Monmouth County and has risen to a prestigious role in New Jersey as the state's first lieutenant governor.

"If you think getting a director's academy award is a big deal, our Kim is a big deal," Shylit Mack said, with the program coming a day after the "Oscars".

Zager said his involvement with the Holocaust and genocide center, and all other community institutions, is about being selfish, because "the more you do, the more you get." As a United Synagogue Youth teenager, Zager said he learned the values of tikkun olam that led to this award.

"It's not just about being moral, it's about making the world a better place for everybody," Zager said. "That includes me -- I'm selfish."

After the films, Denny said the key difference in the reconciliation processes of the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide is that while the Nuremberg Trials involved Nazi leaders, meaning Holocaust survivors weren't facing their "personal offenders," Gacaca proceedings involved Tutsis meeting Hutus who cut their neighbors to death.

"The difference is so vast," said panelist Dr. Deena Harris, assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University.

Harris, a second-generation Holocaust survivor who participated in "Children of the Third Reich," said that shame and guilt is very apparent on the German side, and a particularly galling feeling exists for those whose Nazi parents never told them anything about what they did, leaving the children to "fill in the fantasies."

Panelist Desire Karangwa, a Tutsi survivor, recalled how at the age of 10 in 1994, he lost his parents and became responsible for his brothers and sisters. Karangwa's family's killers lived in the same village as he did post-genocide, but he never met them, he said.

In 2004 and 2005, about 50,000 Hutu prisoners were released by Rwanda. In Gacaca proceedings, "the challenge that we have is that [Hutus] don't tell the truth" in their efforts to protect others who remain in prison, Karangwa said.

"If they tell the truth, it's OK," he said. "We accept them."

Even in 1992, two years before the official genocide, Karangwa recalled that he slept in the bushes while Hutus stole his family's property at night, and that elementary school teachers asked who was a Hutu and who was a Tutsi in class so the government could make a list of who to kill. In fact, Hutus performed midnight raids as far back as the 1960s, when Rwanda gained independence from Belgium and Hutu Gregoire Kayibanda became president, explained panelist Dr. Terry Konn, associate professor of health sciences at BCC.

"That was taking place for many years before the official genocide," said Konn, who in her travels to Rwanda established a non-profit to assist orphans and other African students to attend college for healthcare professions.

Before 1962, Tutsis were colonial administrators for the Belgians, and therefore lost their protection with the advent of Rwandan independence. Rwandan kings came from the Tutsi population even though Tutsis made up just 14 percent of the country, leading the Hutus to resent them, Karangwa said.

Audience member Manny Lindenbaum of Jackson said that as a Holocaust survivor, it took him a while to "relax" when he thought about Germans, but that eventually he "did get way beyond it, because obviously, the next generation has nothing to do with [the Holocaust]." Lindenbaum asked Karangwa if it's possible for Tutsi survivors to feel the same way about the second generation of Hutus, and Karangwa said it's hard to tell at this point because the genocide is still recent history.

However, Karangwa said he doesn't have "any problem" with Hutus he grew up who clearly weren't responsible for the genocide.

Harris said she "grew up not knowing the difference, really, between a Nazi and a German," but through seeing how children of Nazi leaders suffered, she realized they were human just like her.