75 Holocaust Scholars Criticize Venezuelan Pres. on Israel-Nazis Remark
The signatories on the petition include three former senior officials of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, chairman Rabbi Dr. Irving Greenberg, Dr. Michael Berenbaum and Dr. Walter Reich; scholars David S. Wyman (author of The Abandonment of the Jews), Deborah Lipstadt, Henry Feingold, and Thane Rosenbaum; and numerous other prominent scholars from the United States, Canada, Germany, Australia, and Israel.
The letter was organized by The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies (www.WymanInstitute.org) and sent to the Embassy of Venezuela in Washington.
The protest letter stated that “Israel is acting in legitimate self-defense against Hamas terrorism [and] has done its utmost to avoid civilian casualties ... Any comparison between Israel and the Nazis outrageously distorts Israel's actions and trivializes the enormity and nature of the Holocaust.”
The Holocaust scholars also noted that the U.S. State Department, in its report last year on global antisemitism, included “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” as an example of antisemitism.
The letter concluded by urging President Chavez to “retract your comparisons of Israel to the Nazis and refrain from making any such comparisons in the future.”
The text of the letter, and the full list of signatories, follows below.
January 12, 2009
Hon. Hugo Chavez
c/o Embassy of The Republic of Venezuela
1099 30th Street NW
Washington DC 20007
via email: prensa@embavenez-us.org
To His Excellency, President Hugo Chavez:
As Holocaust and genocide scholars, we are deeply troubled by your statement that Israel is carrying out “a Holocaust” in Gaza, and that Israeli President Shimon Peres should be prosecuted for genocide. (Reuters, Jan. 7, 2009)
The Holocaust was the deliberate, systematic mass murder of six million innocent Jews by Germany and its collaborators. By contrast, Israel is acting in legitimate self-defense against Hamas terrorism; has no interest in harming innocent residents of Gaza; and indeed has done its utmost to avoid civilian casualties, whereas Hamas deliberately targets Israeli civilians. Any comparison between Israel and the Nazis outrageously distorts Israel's actions and trivializes the enormity and nature of the Holocaust.
We note that the U.S. State Department, in its report last year on global antisemitism, included “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” as an example of antisemitism. (Sec. 1:7)
We therefore urge you to retract your comparisons of Israel to the Nazis and refrain from making any such comparisons in the future.
Sincerely,
Prof. David S. Wyman
University of Massachusetts-Amherst (emer.)
Author, The Abandonment of the Jews
Prof. (emer.) Edward Alexander
University of Washington
Author, The Resonance of Dust: Essays on Holocaust Literature and
Jewish Fate
Prof. Shlomo Aronson
Hebrew University (emer.) / University of Arizona
Author of Hitler, the Allies, and the Jews
Prof. Marie L. Baird
Duquesne University
Author, On the Side of the Angels: Ethics and Post-Holocaust Spirituality.
Prof. Michael Berenbaum
Director, Ziering Institute on the Holocaust, American Jewish University
Research Director (emer.), United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
President (emer.), Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation
Dr. Paul R. Bartrop
Head, Department of History, Bialik College (Australia)
Author, False Havens: The British Empire and the Holocaust
Prof. Tom Bluger
Hope Terrace
Author, Following the Virgin Mary Through Auschwitz
Prof. Israel W. Charny
Executive Director, Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide, Jerusalem
Immediate Past President, International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS)
Editor-in-Chief, Encyclopedia of Genocide
Prof. Donna Robinson Divine
Morningstar Family Professor of Jewish Studies and
Professor of Government, Smith College
Prof. Deborah Dwork
Director, Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies
Clark University
Prof. Liba H. Engel
Queens College, CUNY
Prof. Henry L. Feingold (emer.)
City University of New York (CUNY)
Author, Jewish Power in America: Myth and Reality
Dr. Eugene J. Fisher
Associate Director (Ret.), Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs
U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Washington, DC
Editor, Catholics Remember the Holocaust
Prof. Saul S. Friedman
Youngstown State University
Author, No Haven for the Oppressed
Prof. Allon Gal
Department of Jewish History
Ben-Gurion Institute for the Study of Israel & Zionism
Ben-Gurion University
Prof. Zev Garber
Los Angeles Valley College
Editor, Studies in the Shoah
Prof. Jay Geller
Vanderbilt University
Editor, Postmemories of the Holocaust
Dr. Myrna Goldenberg
Ida E. King Distinguished Visiting Scholar of Holocaust Studies, The Richard Stockton State College, NJ
Coauthor, Experience and Expression: Women, the Nazis, and the Holocaust
Dr. David Golinkin
President, Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem
Author, Megillat Ha-Shoah
Prof. Henry Gonshak
Montana Tech
Prof. Gershon Greenberg
American University
Author, Wrestling with God: Jewish Theological Responses During
and After the Holocaust
Dr. Irving Greenberg
Past President, Jewish Life Network
Past Chairman, United States Holocaust Memorial Council
Dr. Alex Grobman
Institute for Contemporary Jewish Life
Author, Genocide: Critical Issues of the Holocaust
Dr. Elvira Groezinger
Institut fuer Jdaistik
Freie Universitaet Berlin, Germany
Author, Die jiddische Kultur im Schatten der Diktaturen
Prof. Susannah Heschel
Eli Black Professor of Jewish Studies, Dartmouth College
Author, Betrayal: German Churches and the Holocaust
Dr. Steven Leonard Jacobs
The University of Alabama
Author, Christian Religious Responses to the Shoah
Prof. (emer.) Gerd Korman
Cornell University
Dr. Neil J. Kressel
Institution for Social and Policy Studies, Yale University
Director, Honors Program in the Social Sciences, William Paterson University
Author, Mass Hate: The Global Rise of Genocide and Terror
Rev. Vincent A. Lapomarda, S. J.
Coordinator, Hiatt Holocaust Collection
College of the Holy Cross
Prof. Laurel Leff
Northeastern University
Author, Buried by The Times
Prof. Kevin Lewis
Dept. of Religious Studies
University of South Carolina
Fulbright Senior Lecturer, Islamic Univ. of Gaza, Fall 1998
Mitchell Lieber
Director and Editor, www.Rumbula.org Educational Web Site
(the Holocaust in Latvia) - Chicago, IL
Prof. Deborah E. Lipstadt
Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies
Emory University
Author, History on Trial: My Day in Court with David Irving
Rev. Dr. Franklin H. Littell
Distinguished Emeritus Professor of Religion, Temple University
Founder, Annual Scholars’ Conference on the Holocaust
Dr. Marcia Sachs Littell
Professor Holocaust & Genocide Studies - Richard Stockton College of NJ
Executive DIrector, Annual Scholars’ Conference on the Holocaust
Dr. Erich H. Loewy
Professor of Medicine and Founding Chair of Bioethics (emer.)
University of California, Davis
Author, Freedom and Community
Rabbi Dr. Haskel Lookstein
Ramaz School / Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun
Author, Were We Our Brothers’ Keepers?
Dr. Sharon. R. Lowenstein
Author, Token Refuge
Prof. Andrei S. Markovits
Deutsch Collegiate Professor of Comparative Politics and German Studies
The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Author, The German Predicament
Dr. Rafael Medoff
The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies
Author, Blowing the Whistle on Genocide
Prof. Paul Miller
McDaniel College
Executive Producer, They Looked Away
Dr. Rochelle L. Millen
Wittenberg University
Co-founder, Religion, Holocaust, and Genocide Group of the American Academy of Religion
Prof. Stephen H. Norwood
University of Oklahoma
Coeditor, Encyclopedia of American Jewish History
Prof. David Novak
J. Richard and Dorothy Shiff Professor of Jewish Studies
University of Toronto
Prof. Paul Oppenheimer
City College and Graduate Center, the City University of New York
Author of Evil and the Demonic
Prof. Zsuzanna Ozsvath
University of Texas at Dallas
Author, In the Footsteps of Orpheus
Prof. David Patterson
Bornblum Chair in Judaic Studies, The University of Memphis
Author, Encyclopedia of Holocaust Literature
Prof. Robert Jan van Pelt
University Professor, University of Waterloo
Author, The Case for Auschwitz
Dr. Susan L. Pentlin
Professor Emeritus University of Missouri
New Editor, Mary Berg's Diary: Growing up in the Warsaw Ghetto
Prof. Allen Podet
State University of New York College at Buffalo
Author, Last Chance in Palestine
Prof. Eunice G. Pollack
University of North Texas
Coeditor, Encyclopedia of American Jewish History
Prof. Walter Reich
Yitzhak Rabin Memorial Professor of International Affairs, Ethics and Human Behavior, George Washington University;
Former Director, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Prof. Harry Reicher
University of Pennsylvania Law School;
Scholar-in-Residence, Touro Law Center
Author, Holocaust Law: Materials and Commentary
Prof. Elihu D. Richter MD MPH
Genocide Prevention Program
Hebrew University-Hadassah School of Medicine
Dr. Carol Rittner RSM
Distinguished Professor of Holocaust & Genocide Studies
The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey
Prof. Meri-Jane Rochelson
Florida International University
Author, A Jew in the Public Arena: The Career of Israel Zangwill
Prof. Paul L. Rose
Pennsylvania State University
Editor, Archives of the Holocaust (Vol. XIV)
Prof. Thane Rosenbaum
Director of the Forum on Law, Culture & Society
Fordham University School of Law
Author, The Myth of Moral Justice
Prof. Sheri P. Rosenberg
Director, Human Rights and Genocide Clinic
and Program in Holocaust and Human Rights Studies
Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law
Prof. Alvin H. Rosenfeld
Indiana University
Author, Imagining Hitler
Prof. Richard L. Rubenstein
President Emeritus, University of Bridgeport
Author, After Auschwitz
Dr. Nancy E. Rupprecht
Professor of History & Chair, Holocaust Studies Committee
Middle Tennessee State University
Editor, Understanding the Holocaust: Fact, Fiction, Fallacy
Dr. Rochelle G. Saidel
Founder and Director, Remember the Women Institute
Author, The Jewish Women of Ravensbruck Concentration Camp
Prof. Robert Moses Shapiro
Brooklyn College of the City University of New York
Translator and editor, Lodz Ghetto: A History
Prof. (emer.) Robert Skloot
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Author, The Theatre of the Holocaust
Rev. Dr. Kevin P. Spicer, C.S.C.
Associate Professor
Stonehill College, Easton, MA
Prof. (emer.) Leon Stein
Roosevelt University
Past Director of Education, Holocaust Memorial Foundation of Illinois
Prof. (emer.) Peter Tarjan
University of Miami
Editor, Children Who Survived the Final Solution
Dr. Mary Todd
Professor of History
Ohio Dominican University
Prof. Kenneth Waltzer
Professor and Director, Jewish Studies
Michigan State University
Dr. Racelle R. Weiman
Executive Director, The Dialogue Institute
Temple University
Theodore Zev Weiss
President, Holocaust Educational Foundation
Skokie, IL
Prof. James E. Young
Chair, Department of Judaic & Near Eastern Studies, U. of Mass. Amherst
Author, Writing and Rewriting the Holocaust
Member, Academic Council, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
Prof. John C. Zimmerman
University of Nevada Las Vegas
Author, Holocaust Denial
Dr. Bat-Ami Zucker
Bar Ilan University
Author, In Search of Refuge
(Institutions listed for identification purposes only.)