About
NYU President Linda G. Mills announced the new Center on November 15, 2023.
The Center for the Study of Antisemitism is expected to be a setting of robust scholarship and research on ancient and modern expressions of hatred of Jews; a home for vibrant, timely public programming; and a collaborator with NYU units — as well as external entities — in confronting the rising tide of antisemitism and other forms of hate. Programming is expected to begin in Spring 2024.
Staff
Avinoam Patt, Inaugural Director
Avinoam Patt is the inaugural director of NYU’s Center for the Study of Antisemitism and the Maurice Greenberg Professor of Holocaust Studies at New York University.
He holds a B.A. in Religion (Judaic Studies Concentration) from Emory University and a Joint Ph.D. in Hebrew and Judaic Studies and Modern European History from New York University. Dr. Patt previously held the Doris and Simon Konover Chair of Judaic Studies at the University of Connecticut, where he served as Director of the Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life. From 2007-2019 he was the Philip D. Feltman Professor of Modern Jewish History at the University of Hartford, where he served as director of the Museum of Jewish Civilization. He also worked previously as the Miles Lerman Applied Research Scholar for Jewish Life and Culture at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Dr. Patt is the author of multiple books on Jewish responses to the Holocaust, including Finding Home and Homeland: Jewish Youth and Zionism in the Aftermath of the Holocaust (2009); co-editor of a collected volume on Jewish Displaced Persons, titled We are Here: New Approaches to the Study of Jewish Displaced Persons in Postwar Germany (2010); and is a contributor to several projects at the USHMM including Jewish Responses to Persecution, 1938-1940 (2011). He recently completed a new book on the early postwar memory of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (The Jewish Heroes of Warsaw: The Afterlife of the Revolt, 2021). Together with David Slucki and Gabriel Finder, he is co-editor of Laughter After: Humor and the Holocaust (2020) and, with Laura Hilton, Understanding and Teaching the Holocaust (2020). His newest book, Israel and the Holocaust, will be published by Bloomsbury Press as part of its Perspectives on the Holocaust series in 2024.
In Spring 2022, he created and facilitated a new one-credit pop-up course at the University of Connecticut, Why the Jews: Confronting Antisemitism, which reached over 1600 students in the first semester it was offered.
Advisory Committee
Mor Armony, Vice Dean for Faculty and Research; Harvey Golub Professor of Business Leadership; Professor of Technology, Operations & Statistics
Elisha Russ-Fishbane, Associate Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies; Co-Director of the Dual Degree MA-MPA Program
Yehuda Sarna, Faculty Co-Director of Dual Degree Program (MPA-MA in Hebrew and Judaic Studies); Adjunct Associate Professor of Public Service; Executive Director of the Bronfman Center
Lawrence H. Schiffman, Global Distinguished Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies
Lihi Ben Shitrit, Henry and Marilyn Taub Professor of Israel Studies; Director of the Taub Center for Israel Studies
Batia Mishan Wiesenfeld, Director of the Business & Society Program; Andre J.L. Koo Professor of Management
The ad hoc advisory committee that has helped to guide the initial development of the Center will be expanded over the course of the next year as areas of research focus are developed.