We are delighted to report that Professor Stefan Ihrig has been awarded the 2017 Dr. Sona Aronian Book Prize for excellence in Armenian Studies.
Stefan, who joined the faculty in 2016, was recognised by The National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) for his book Justifying Genocide: Germany and the Armenians from Bismarck to Hitler (Harvard University Press).
Dr. Carol Kidron is a senior lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Haifa. She teaches Anthropology of Memory, Trauma and Commemoration in the Weiss-Livnat International MA Program in Holocaust Studies.
At the start of her career, Dr. Kidron researched the collective memory and transmitted trauma of second and third generation Holocaust survivors. She then began to compare it with other groups who suffered genocide to assess whether or not the way Jews approach the memory and commemoration of the Holocaust is universal. Dr. Kidron closely examines the case of Cambodia. She found that there is a very different view among descendants of survivors of the Cambodian Genocide and descendants of Holocaust survivors. Overall, Dr. Kidron found that many Cambodians are disinterested in the genocide. Dr. Kidron attributes this in part to Buddhism’s role in their lives. Contrary to Judaism, Buddhism is not so concerned with the past and stresses the importance of the present and the future. Under the Buddhist perspective, one should accept their karma and move forward. Furthermore, through the Buddhist perspective, the suffering of the genocide is not different to other instances of suffering and therefore does not hold an overly special place in the collective memory of Cambodians.
Professor Stefan Ihrig received his BA degree in Law and Politics at the Queen Mary University in London, his MA degree in History, Turcology and Political Science at the Free University of Berlin and his PhD in History at the University of Cambridge. Professor Ihrig spent four years as a project assistant and researcher at the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research and has also spent four years as a Polonsky Fellow at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute. He has previously lectured at the Free University of Berlin and the Univesity of Regensburg. In 2016 the Weiss-Livnat International MA Program in Holocaust Studies had the pleasure of welcoming him to the faculty. He is also a professor in the Department of General History at the University of Haifa and at the Haifa Center of German and European Studies.
Dr. Jan Grabowski visited the University of Haifa earlier this Spring. During his visit he gave a lecture on Jews in Poland to our students, and moreover he filmed the videos for an online course which will be available to current students. Dr. Jan Grabowski is a professor at the University of Ottawa, originally from Poland, he offers a growing network to our students.
Professor Shmuel Lederman
In his recent article in the Journal of Genocide Research, Professor Shmuel Lederman – a professor a the Weiss Livnat International MA Studies Program in Holocaust Studies at the University of Haifa – examines the distinctive harm of genocide. He makes specific reference to Hannah Arendt’s conceptualization of the harm of genocide, positing that despite its flaws it brings a valuable perspective to the issue.
Lederman opens by citing the views of historians who distinguish the harm of genocide as stemming from the loss to the world of a unique culture. As he notes, culture is difficult to quantify. If one understands culture as referring primarily to high culture, one would have to argue that the genocide of the Jews is ‘worse’ than the genocide of the Roma, who have not made the same level of cultural contribution. On the other hand, Lederman writes, one could approach cultural loss as the destruction of a distinct way of life. This viewpoint is also difficult to defend, since for example the majority of German Jewry killed in the Holocaust were assimilated into German society and did not live in any way that differentiated them from their non-Jewish compatriots.
Writing in the journal History and Memory in 2016, art historian Rachel Perry of the University of Haifa’s Holocaust Studies Program considers the impact and implications of Living Landscape, the entrance art installation created by Michal Rovner at Yad Vashem’s new Holocaust History Museum. Perry discusses the message and thematic expression of Living Landscape as embodying the message of the new Holocaust History Museum, with reference to the concept of hospitality as conveyed by Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida.
Jan Grabowski is a professor of history at the University of Ottawa. In the academic year of 2017-18 he will be teaching an online course to the students of Weiss-Livnat International MA program on the Jews of Poland during the Holocaust.
In his 2009 article for the journal Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Professor Jan Grabowski of the University of Ottawa discusses the little-examined issue of the German anti-Jewish propaganda that was distributed in the General Gouvernement (GG) area of Poland during the years of German invasion and occupation, from 1939 to 1945. He notes the resources that were dedicated to this branch of propaganda in particular, with the use of visual media and the involvement of Polish artists and existing Polish anti-semitic material.
