View source for Robert S. Wistrich

[[File:Robert Wistrich.JPG|thumb|Robert Wistrich]]
'''Robert Solomon Wistrich''' (April 7, 1945 &ndash; May 19, 2015) was the Erich Neuberger Professor of [[European history|European]] and [[Jewish history]] at the [[Hebrew University of Jerusalem]], and the head of the University's [[Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism]].  According to [[Indiana University]], Wistrich was "a leading scholar of the [[history of antisemitism]]."<ref>
Indiana University to Launch Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism, 1/11/2010 [http://newswise.com/articles/indiana-university-to-launch-institute-for-the-study-of-contemporary-antisemitism]</ref>

==Early life==
Wistrich was born in [[Lenger]], in the [[Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic]] on April 7, 1945.<ref name=NIAS>[https://www.nias.knaw.nl:10051/en/oudfellows/research_group_1999_2000/summaries_99_00/robert_wistrich/ Robert Wistrich], Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences website, accessed August 21, 2006.</ref> 
His parents were leftist [[History of the Jews in Poland|Polish Jews]] who had moved to [[Lviv]] in 1940 in order to escape the [[Nazi occupation of Poland|Germans]]; however, they found [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] [[totalitarianism]] to be little better. In 1942 they moved to Kazakhstan, where Wistrich's father was imprisoned twice by the [[NKVD]].<ref>[http://www.tau.ac.il/Anti-Semitism/asw2001-2/wistrich.htm "The Jedwabne Affair"], The [[Stephen Roth Institute]] for the Study of Anti-Semitism and Racism, [[Tel Aviv University]], accessed August 21, 2006.</ref> His parents returned to Poland under a repatriation agreement between [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]] and the [[Polish government-in-exile]].

Later, finding the post-war environment in Poland to be dangerously anti-Semitic<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.amazon.com/Lethal-Obsession-Anti-Semitism-Antiquity-Global/dp/1400060974|title=A Lethal Obsession: Anti-Semitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad: Robert S. Wistrich: 9781400060979: Amazon.com: Books|work=amazon.com|accessdate=4 October 2015}}</ref> – the family moved to [[France]]. The author grew up in [[England]], and went to 
[[Queens Park Community School|Kilburn Grammar School]]
where he was taught by "Walter Isaacson, a refugee from Nazi Germany who first taught me how to think independently" (Dedication in 
Wistrich (2012) ''From Ambivalence to Betrayal: The Left, the Jews, and Israel'')

in December 1962, aged 17, Wistrich won an Open Scholarship in History to [[Queens' College, Cambridge|Queens' College]]. In 1966 he graduated with a BA (Hons) from the [[University of Cambridge|Cambridge]], which was raised to a [[Master of Arts (Oxbridge and Dublin)|MA]] degree in 1969. At Cambridge, he founded ''Circuit'', a literary and arts magazine that he co-edited between 1966 and 1969. Between 1969–1970, during a study year in [[Israel]], he became the youngest ever literary editor of ''New Outlook'', a left-wing monthly in [[Tel Aviv]], founded by [[Martin Buber]].

==Professional career==
[[File:Robert Wistrich and Bernard Lewis.jpg|thumb|alt=Robert Wistrich and Bernard Lewis|Robert Wistrich (left) and [[Bernard Lewis]], 2007]]
Wistrich received his [[Ph.D.]] from the [[University of London]] in 1974.<ref name=NIAS/>  Between 1974 and 1980, he was Director of Research at the Institute of Contemporary History and the [[Wiener Library]] (at that time the largest research library on the [[Third Reich]] existing in Europe) and the editor of the ''Wiener Library Bulletin'' in London. Appointed a Research Fellow at the [[British Academy]], he had already written several well-received books by the time he was given tenure at the [[Hebrew University of Jerusalem]] in 1982. In 1985 his book ''[[Socialism]] and the [[Jews]]'' won the joint award of the [[Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism]] at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the [[American Jewish Committee]]. His 1989 book ''The Jews of [[Vienna]] in the Age of [[Franz Joseph]]'' received the Austrian State Prize in History. His next study, ''Antisemitism: The Longest Hatred'' (1991) won the [[Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Literary Prize]] in the UK a year later, and was the basis for ''The Longest Hatred'' — a three-hour British-American TV documentary mini-series made for <!-- Citing from end credits. Strictly speaking, a Nucleus Production for... --> [[Thames Television]]/[[WGBH-TV|WGBH]] scripted by Wistrich and shown on [[PBS]]. In 1993, he also scripted ''Good Morning, Mr. Hitler'', an award-winning documentary on Nazi art commissioned by the UK's [[Channel 4]].

Between 1991 and 1995, Wistrich was appointed the first holder of the Chair of Jewish Studies at [[University College London]], in addition to his position at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He also wrote several dramas for BBC radio and Kol Israel on the lives of historical figures ranging from [[Leon Trotsky]] to [[Theodor Herzl]]. In 2003, he acted as the chief historical consultant for the BBC documentary, ''Blaming the Jews'' (about contemporary Muslim antisemitism) and in 2006 he was the academic advisor for the film: ''[[Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West]]''.

He was one of six scholars who sat on the [[International Catholic-Jewish Historical Commission]] from 1999 to 2001 to examine the wartime record of [[Pope Pius XII]], with special reference to [[The Holocaust]].<ref>[http://www.acpr.org.il/english-nativ/authors/wistrich-r.htm "Robert Wistrich"], NATIV online, retrieved August 20, 2006.</ref> From 2002, he was the director of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, and edited its journal, ''Antisemitism International''.

Wistrich died of a heart attack on May 19, 2015 in [[Rome]], [[Italy]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Robert-Wistrich-leading-scholar-of-anti-Semitism-dies-of-heart-attack-403590|title=Robert Wistrich, leading scholar of anti-Semitism, dies of heart attack|work=The Jerusalem Post - JPost.com|accessdate=4 October 2015}}</ref>

==Works==

===Selected books===
*''Revolutionary Jews from Marx to Trotsky''. Barnes & Noble Books, 1976. ISBN 0-06-497806-0
*''The Left Against Zion''. Vallentine Mitchell & Co, 1979. ISBN 0-85303-199-1
*''Socialism and the Jews''. Oxford University Press, 1982.
*''Trotsky: Fate of a Revolutionary''. Stein & Day, 1982. ISBN 0-8128-2774-0
*''The Jews of Vienna in the Age of Franz Joseph''. Oxford University Press, 1989.
*''Between Redemption and Perdition: Modern Antisemitism and Jewish Identity''. Routledge, 1990. ISBN 0-415-04233-X
*''Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism in the Contemporary World''. New York University Press, 1990. ISBN 0-8147-9237-5
*''Antisemitism, the Longest Hatred''. Pantheon, 1992.
*''Who's Who in Nazi Germany''. Routledge, 1995. ISBN 0-415-12723-8
*''Terms of Survival''. Routledge, 1995. ISBN 0-415-10056-9
*''Weekend in Munich: Art, Propaganda and Terror in the Third Reich'' (with Luke Holland). Trafalgar Square, 1996. ISBN 1-85793-318-4
*''Theodor Herzl: Visionary of the Jewish State''. New York and Jerusalem: Herzl Press and Magnes Press, 1999, 390 pages.
*''Demonizing the Other: Antisemitism, Racism and Xenophobia''. Routledge, 1999. ISBN 90-5702-497-7
*''Hitler and the Holocaust''. Random House, 2001.
*''Nietzsche: Godfather of Fascism?'' Princeton, 2002.
*''Laboratory for World Destruction. Germans and Jews in Central Europe'', University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, Nebraska 2007. ISBN 978-0-8032-1134-6
*''A Lethal Obsession: Antisemitism – From Antiquity to the Global Jihad,'' Random House, 2010. ISBN 978-1-4000-6097-9
*''From Ambivalence to Betrayal. The Left, the Jews and Israel'', University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, Nebraska 2012. ISBN 0803240767

===Selected papers===
*“German Social Democracy and the Problem of Jewish Nationalism, 1897–1917,” Leo Baeck Yearbook 21 (1976), pp.&nbsp;109 142.
*“A Neo Revisionist Renaissance?  Back to Bernstein,” Encounter, (July 1978), pp.&nbsp;75 82.
*“Historians and the Holocaust,” The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 55, No. 2 (1983), pp.&nbsp;317 20.
*“The Modernization of Viennese Jewry: The Impact of German Culture in a Multi-Ethnic State,” in: Toward Modernity: The European Model, Jacob Katz, ed., Transaction Books, 1987, pp.&nbsp;43 70.
*“Antisemitismus,” in Neue Lexicon des Judentums, J. H. Schoeps, ed., München: Bertelsmann Lexicon Verlag, 1992, pp.&nbsp;41 47.
*“Socialism and Judeophobia: Antisemitism in Europe before 1914,” Leo Baeck Yearbook, (1992), pp.&nbsp;111 145.
*“The Jews and Nationality Conflicts in the Habsburg Lands,” Nationalities Papers, (New York) Vol. 22, Nr. I (Spring 1994) pp.&nbsp;119 141.
*“Theodor Herzl,” Israel Affairs, (Spring 1995) Vol. 1. No. 3, pp.&nbsp;1 37.
*“Max Nordau and the Dreyfus Affair,” The Journal of Israeli History, (Tel Aviv) Vol. 16, No. 1 (1955), pp.&nbsp;1–19.
*“Hitler’s Helpers,” Commentary, (June 1996), pp.&nbsp;51–55.
*“Zionism and its Jewish `Assimilationist Critics’, 1897-1948,” Jewish Social Studies, 1998, Vol.4 No.2, pp.59–111
*“The Pope, the Church and the Jews,” Commentary (April 1999), pp.&nbsp;22–28.
*“How to Tackle the New Antisemitism” in Standpoint (October 2008) pp.&nbsp;74–77.  "Austria and the Legacy of the Holocaust", The American Jewish Committee, New York 1999, 56 pages.
*“Austria and the Jewish Question, 1945–1950”, in: Robert B. Pynsent (ed.), The Phoney Peace. Power and Culture in Central Europe, 1945–49 (London, 2000), pp.&nbsp;39–57.
*“Was Nietzsche a Fascist Thinker?”, Partisan Review, 2001, 2, pp.&nbsp;201–217
*“The Vatican and the Shoah”, Modern Judaism, Vol. 21, Nr. 2, May 2001, pp.&nbsp;83–107
*“The Demise of the Catholic-Jewish Historical Commission”, Midstream, December 2001, pp.&nbsp;2–5.
*“Jewish Suffering, Vatican Silence”, Catholic International (Washington, D.C.), vol. 13, No. 2, May 2002, pp.&nbsp;57–62.
*{{cite web|url= http://www.ajc.org/atf/cf/%7B42D75369-D582-4380-8395-D25925B85EAF%7D/WistrichAntisemitism.pdf |title=Muslim Anti-Semitism: A Clear and Present Danger}}&nbsp;{{small|(3.48&nbsp;[[Mebibyte|MiB]])}}, [[American Jewish Committee]], 2002.
*“Muslims, Jews and September 11: The British Case” in Barry Kosmin and Paul Iganski (eds.) The New Anti-Semitism (London, 2003) pp.&nbsp;169–191.
*"The Old-New Antisemitism”, ''The National Interest'' (Washington D.C.), Summer 2003, pp.&nbsp;59–70; [http://nationalinterest.org/article/the-old-new-anti-semitism-398 abstract online].
* "The Politics of Ressentiment: Israel, Jews and the German Media". ACTA paper no. 23, The Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, November 2004, 37 pages.
*[http://www.acpr.org.il/english-nativ/02-issue/wistrich-2.htm "Islamic Judeophobia: An Existential Threat"], NATIV online, Volume 2, 2004.
*"Islamic Judeophobia: An Existential Threat", in [[David Bukay|Bukay, Daid]] (ed.) ''Muhammad's Monsters'', Balfour Books, 2004
*“Friedrich Nietzsche and the Austrian Fin de Siecle”, in J. Golomb (ed.) Nietzsche and the Austrian Culture (Wien, 2004) pp.&nbsp;42–60.
*“The Jihadist Challenge”, Midstream (Nov/Dec 2004), pp.&nbsp;8–12.
*“The Last Testament of Sigmund Freud”, Leo Baeck Yearbook XLIX (2004), pp.&nbsp;87–106.
*[http://www.jcpa.org/phas/phas-wistrich-f04.htm "Anti-Zionism and Anti-Semitism"], Jewish Political Studies Review 16:3-4, Fall 2004.
* "Antisemitism in Western Europe at the Beginning of the 21st Century", World Jewish Congress Research Series, January 2005, 24 pages.
*“Antisemitism – A Civilizational Pathology”, in Manfred Gerstenfeld (ed.) Israel and Europe: An Expanding Abyss (Jerusalem 2005) pp.&nbsp;95–110.
*{{cite web|url= http://www.ajc.org/atf/cf/%7B42D75369-D582-4380-8395-D25925B85EAF%7D/wistrich.pdf |title=European Anti-Semitism Reinvents Itself}}&nbsp;{{small|(2.62&nbsp;[[Mebibyte|MiB]])}}, American Jewish Committee, 2005.
*[http://www.tau.ac.il/Anti-Semitism/asw2001-2/wistrich.htm "The Jedwabne Affair"], The [[Stephen Roth Institute]] for the Study of Anti-Semitism and Racism, [[Tel Aviv University]].
*"Reinventing  European Antisemitism". The American Jewish Committee, New York, 2005, 54 pages.
*"Pius XII and the Shoah" in M. Zimmermann et al., Three Generations of Historians on Germans and Jews under the Nazi Regime (Magnes Press, Jerusalem 2006) pp.&nbsp;21–41.
*"Stefan Zweig and the ‘World of Yesterday’", in Mark H. Gelber (ed.) Stefan Zweig Reconsidered – New Perspectiveson his Literary and Biographical Writings (Max Niemeyer Verlag, Tübingen 2007), pages 59–77.
*"Anti-Semitism and Multiculturalism: The Uneasy Connection" – Posen Papers No. 5, The Vidal Sassoon Center for the Study of Antisemitism, March 2007, 12 pages.
*"Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism: The Case of Bruno Kreisky". ACTA paper no. 30, The Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, December 2007, 26 pages.
*“Modernity and the Nazi Genocide” in Song Lihong (ed.), Holocaust: history and Memory (Nanjing University 2007), pp.&nbsp;171–192.
*“Dialogue in Hell: Zionism and its Double” in Midstream (May/June 2008), pp.&nbsp;9–14
*“How to Tackle the New Antisemitism” in Standpoint (October 2008) pp.&nbsp;74–77.
*“Post-Mubarak Egypt: The Dark Side of Islamic Utopia”.(2012). ''Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs'', 6(1), 23-32
*“Gaza, Hamas and the Return of Anti-Semitism”. (2014). ''Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs'', 8(3), 35-48
*[http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/23739770.2015.1037579 “Anti-Zionist Mythology of the Left"].(2015). ''Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs'', Vol. IX(2), 1-13.

==Notes==
<references/>

==Further reading==
*[http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/235005?cookieSet=1  Michael Berkowitz "Robert S. Wistrich and European Jewish History: Straddling the Public and Scholarly Spheres" in: The Journal of Modern History 70 (March 1998) 119-136.]
*“From Cracow to London; A Polish Jewish Odyssey” in: The Jews in Poland. Volume 2, Slawomir Kapralski ed., Cracow 1999 (Judaica Foundation Center for Jewish Culture), pp.&nbsp;57–73.
*“The Vatican and the Shoah”, Modern Judaism, Vol. 21, Nr. 2, May 2001, pp.&nbsp;83–107
*“The Demise of the Catholic-Jewish Historical Commission”, Midstream, December 2001, pp.&nbsp;2–5.
*“The Vatican on Trial”, The Jerusalem Report, 28. January 2002, pp.&nbsp;4–6.
*Gerstenfeld, Manfred. [http://www.jcpa.org/phas/phas-25.htm "Something rotten in the State of Europe: Anti-Semitism as a Civilizational Pathology"], an interview with Robert Wistrich, [[Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs]], October 1, 2004.
*[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3234264.stm#Robert "Viewpoints: Anti-Semitism and Europe"], includes comment from Robert Wistrich, BBC, December 3, 2003.
*[http://www.claremont.org/article/sickness-unto-death/ Claremont Review on Wistrich and "A Lethal Obsession"] Summer 2011.
*“Antisemitism – A Civilizational Pathology”, in Manfred Gerstenfeld (ed.) Israel and Europe: An Expanding Abyss (Jerusalem 2005) pp.&nbsp;95–110.
*“Cruel Britannia” Azure (Summer 2005), pp.&nbsp;100–124.
*“Drawing the Line. On Antisemitism and anti-Zionism”, The Jewish Quarterly Nr. 198 (Summer 2005), pp.&nbsp;21–24.
*“How to Tackle the New Antisemitism” in Standpoint (October 2008) pp.&nbsp;74–77.
*"Interviews”, in Andrei Marga (ed.)  Dialoguri (Presa Universitarǎ Clujeanǎ, 2008) pp.&nbsp;221–235. In English

==External links==
{{Commons category}}
*[http://pluto.huji.ac.il/~robertw/index.html Robert Wistrich's website]

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Wistrich, Robert}}
[[Category:1945 births]]
[[Category:2015 deaths]]
[[Category:Kazakhstani Jews]]
[[Category:Polish Jews]]
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[[Category:Jewish historians]]
[[Category:Scholars of antisemitism]]
[[Category:Critics of the United Nations]]