Wednesday, September 10, 2025, 7 pm Palestine time
Prof. Amos Goldberg (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Title: Holocaust Memory and “Fighting Antisemitism” in Times of Genocide
Abstract: How is it that the three countries in which Holocaust memory is most dominant—and which have invested enormous efforts over the past three or four decades to globalize Holocaust memory and the “fight against antisemitism”—Israel, the United States, and Germany—are the very countries most involved in the genocide in Gaza?
In this lecture, I aim to examine some historical processes that led to this since 1970s, and especially from the 1990s onward. In my talk, I will highlight the confrontation between mainstream western Holocaust discourse and the anti/post-colonial discourse that also took root in the West during the 1990s. I will pay particular attention to the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which—as the Israeli philosopher Adi Ophir aptly put it—functions as a discursive “Iron Dome” for Israel against any effective criticism.
Bio: Amos Goldberg is a Professor of Holocaust history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He was among the initiators and drafters of the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism. In April 2024 he published in the Hebrew magazine Sicha Mekomit (Local Call), the article “Yes, It is Genocide”, which was the first full Hebrew article by an Israel based scholar, acknowledging the genocide.