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.
Administration
Avinoam Patt PhD, 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.
Elisha Russ-Fishbane PhD, Research Director
Elisha Russ-Fishbane, Associate Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at NYU, is a scholar of medieval Jewish history focusing on Jewish-Muslim relations and on Jewish culture in the medieval Islamic world. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on antisemitism in the West and on the history of Jewish-Muslim relations from the rise of Islam to the contemporary world, including antisemitism in the Islamic world. He is the author of Judaism, Sufism, and the Pietists of Medieval Egypt: A Study of Abraham Maimonides and His Circle (Oxford University Press, 2015) and Ageing in Medieval Jewish Culture (The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2022), and is currently at work on a book on Islam in the medieval Jewish imagination.
Tracy Figueroa MPA, Assistant Director
Tracy Figueroa is the Assistant Director for NYU’s Center for the Study of Antisemitism. She earned her BA from Hampshire College in Amherst, MA and her MPA from the NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. Tracy began her career in the non-profit world as an educator at The Museum of Jewish Heritage - A Living Memorial to the Holocaust where she was the project coordinator for the first book (To Life: 36 Stories of Memory and Hope) featuring artifacts from the Museum’s collection. From there she went on to work at Park Avenue Synagogue’s Congregational School and in 2007 joined NYU’s Bronfman Center for Jewish Student Life. During her time at NYU she has worked as an administrative director in academic departments at NYU Steinhardt and most recently at NYU Tandon. Tracy currently serves on the board and does regular service trips with Nechama: Jewish Response to Disaster.
Rabbi Yehuda Sarna, Hannah and Ed Low Professor of Community-Engaged Scholarship
Rabbi Yehuda Sarna is the Executive Director of the Bronfman Center for Jewish Student Life at New York University and University Chaplain. He co-directs the Dual Degree Program (MPA and MA in Hebrew and Judaic Studies) and he is an Adjunct Associate Professor of Public Service at the Robert F. Wagner School for Public Service. He is a Co-Founder and Senior Fellow at the “Of Many” Institute for Multifaith Leadership, which trains the next generation of interfaith leaders. He served as the inaugural Chief Rabbi of the Moses Ben Maimon Synagogue of the Abrahamic Family House in Abu Dhabi, UAE, and now continues as a Senior Religious Advisor. He is the editor of The Koren Shabbat Evening Siddur (2011) and the Orthodox Forum Series: Toward a Jewish Perspective on Culture (2013). He and his wife, Dr. Michelle Waldman Sarna, have six children and live in Manhattan.
William Pimlott PhD, Postdoctoral Associate
Dr. Pimlott is a historian whose work explores the development of modern Jewish politics and culture within Britain and across the world in the period of mass Jewish migration, particularly as expressed in Yiddish. He recently completed his PhD on the Yiddish press in Britain, 1896-1910, at UCL, and has subsequently held two research fellowships at the University of London: at the Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism and the Holocaust Research Institute at Royal Holloway, respectively. At the NYU Center for the Study of Antisemitism he will be embarking on two new research projects. The first, a history of definitions of, and campaigns against, antisemitism within the global Yiddish public sphere, will expand on earlier work on the international Yiddish press. The second will explore the contemporary growth of digital antisemitism.
Advisory Committee
The ad hoc advisory committee that has helped to guide the initial development of the Center will be expanded as areas of research focus are developed.
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
Alex Jassen, Ethel and Irvin Edelman Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University; Department Chair of the Hebrew and Judaic Studies Department at NYU