Crucial Conversations: Challenging Antisemitism - Session 1

Session 1: Contemporary Antisemitism

In this session, experts will discuss elements of 20th century antisemitism and aspects of contemporary antisemitism. The discussion will include the alarming rise of antisemitic rhetoric and actions following the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023.

About the Speakers

Michael Berenbaum, Ph.D. is the Director of the Sigi Ziering Institute: Exploring the Ethical and Religious Implications of the Holocaust and a Distinguished Professor of Jewish Studies at the American Jewish University. The author and editor of 24 books, he was also the Executive Editor of the Second Edition of the Encyclopaedia Judaica. He was Project Director overseeing the creation of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the first Director of its Research Institute and later served as President and CEO of the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, which took the testimony of 52,000 Holocaust survivors in 32 languages and 57 countries.

Berenbaum's work in film has won Emmy Awards and Academy Awards. He has developed and curated Museums in the United States, Mexico, North Macedonia and Poland and his award winning exhibition Auschwitz. Not Long Ago. Not Far Away has been in Madrid and Malmo, New York, Kansas City and most recently at the Ronald Regan Library in California and will soon open in Boston.

Charles Asher Small, Ph.D. is the Founding Executive Director of the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP). Small has convened groundbreaking academic seminar series, conferences and programming in the emerging field of contemporary antisemitism studies at top-tier universities around the world. Small was also the Founding Director of the Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism (YIISA), the first interdisciplinary research center on antisemitism at a North American university.

Small is the author of numerous books and articles including: The ISGAP Papers: Antisemitism in Comparative Perspective: Volume Two (2016) and The Yale Papers: Antisemitism in Comparative Perspective: Volume One (2015). Small has also served as a consultant and policy advisor in North America, Europe, Southern Africa, and the Middle East, addressing the European Parliament, United Nations, Israeli Knesset, the Kigali International Forum on Genocide, as well as various European Parliaments and leading think tanks in China, India, and the Americas.

About the Moderator

David Patterson, Ph.D. holds the Hillel A. Feinberg Distinguished Chair in Holocaust Studies at the Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies, University of Texas at Dallas, and is a Senior Research Fellow for the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP). He has lectured at universities on six continents and throughout the United States. A winner of the National Jewish Book Award, the Koret Jewish Book Award, the Hadassah Mytrle Wreath Award, and the Holocaust Scholars’ Conference Eternal Flame Award, Patterson has published more than 40 books and more than 250 articles, essays, and book chapters on antisemitism, the Holocaust, and Jewish studies. His most recent books are Twenty-Six Questions along the Path to Wisdom (Wipf & Stock, forthcoming), Eighteen Words to Sustain a Life (Wipf & Stock, 2023), Judaism, Antisemitism, Holocaust: Making the Connections (Cambridge, 2022), Shoah and Torah (Routledge, 2022), Portraits: Elie Wiesel’s Hasidic Legacy (SUNY, 2021), The Holocaust and the Non-Representable (SUNY, 2018), Anti-Semitism and Its Metaphysical Origins (Cambridge, 2015), and A Genealogy of Evil: Anti-Semitism from Nazism to Islamic Jihad (Cambridge, 2010).

About the Series

Join the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum for a three-part series on contemporary antisemitism. Through these public programs, we aim to foster an increased understanding of this long-standing hatred, to discuss the alarming increase in antisemitism globally and in the United States, and to identify concrete steps that can be taken to confront and disrupt antisemitism. For these sessions, we will convene a group of experts to share their knowledge, experiences, and ideas.