Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By simmons on May 22, 2015

Robert S. Wistrich, one of the worlds foremost scholars of anti-Semitism, died late Tuesday evening after suffering a heart attack in Rome, where he was due to address the Italian Senate about rising anti-Semitism in Europe.

Wistrich, 70, was the Neuburger Professor of European and Jewish history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the head of the Universitys Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism.

Over the course of his career, Wistrich edited and published dozens of books about the fate of Jews and their treatment by other nations.

Among his notable works was the 1989 book The Jews of Vienna in the age of Franz Joseph, which won the Austrian State Prize in History. Two years later he published Antisemitism: The Longest Hatred, which later served as the basis for a three-hour British-American television documentary on anti-Semitism.

His book A Lethal Obsession: Antisemitism From Antiquity to the Global Jihad, published in 2010, was awarded the Best Book of the Year Prize by the New-York based Journal for the Study of Antisemitism.

In 2014, Wistrich authored an exhibition titled The 3,500 year relationship of the Jewish People to the Land of Israel, which was scheduled for display at UNESCO headquarters in Paris but was canceled amid pressure from Arab nations.

At the time, Wistrich said that the cancellation completely destroyed any claim that UNESCO could possibly have to be representing the universal values of toleration, mutual understanding, respect for the other and narratives that are different, engaging with civil society organizations and the importance of education. Because theres one standard for Jews, and theres another standard for non-Jews, especially if theyre Arabs, but not only.

The exhibit eventually reopened six months later after the phrase Land of Israel in the title was replaced with Holy Land.

Robert Wistrich (photo credit: courtesy)

In July 2014 Wistrich was invited to address an emergency Knesset meeting on rising violent anti-Semitism and anti-Israel activities in Europe, during which he warned that we have entered a new, very difficult era in all of Europe.

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Anti-Semitism scholar Robert S. Wistrich dies at 70 | The ...

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