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Dovid Katz (
Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...
: , also , Hirshe-Dovid Kats, , born 9 May 1956) is an American-born,
Vilnius Vilnius ( , ; see also other names) is the capital and largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the municipality of Vilnius). The population of Vilnius's functional urb ...
-based scholar, author and educator, specializing in Yiddish language and literature, Lithuanian Jewish culture, and the Holocaust in Eastern Europe. In recent years, he has been known for combating the so-called " Double Genocide" revision of Holocaust history which asserts a
moral equivalence Moral equivalence is a term used in political debate, usually to deny that a moral comparison can be made of two sides in a conflict, or in the actions or tactics of two sides. The term had some currency in polemic debates about the Cold War, an ...
between
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
and the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
. He is editor of the web journal ''Defending History'' which he founded in 2009. He is known to spend part of each year at his home in
North Wales North Wales ( cy, Gogledd Cymru) is a region of Wales, encompassing its northernmost areas. It borders Mid Wales to the south, England to the east, and the Irish Sea to the north and west. The area is highly mountainous and rural, with Snowdonia N ...
. His website includes a list of his books, of some articles by topic, a record of recent work, and a more comprehensive bibliography.


Early life and Yiddish studies

Born in the
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
borough of
Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
into the Litvak (Lithuanian Jewish) family of Yiddish and English poet Menke Katz, Dovid Katz attended the Brooklyn day schools Hebrew Institute of Boro Park and East Midwood Jewish Day School, and then
Yeshivah of Flatbush The Yeshivah of Flatbush is a Modern Orthodox private Jewish day school located in the Midwood section of Brooklyn, New York. It educates students from age 2 to age 18 and includes an early childhood center, an elementary school and a secondary s ...
High School, where he led a student protest calling for the inclusion of Yiddish in American Hebrew day school curricula, and founded and edited the Yiddish-English student journal "Aleichem Sholem" (1972–1974). He majored in linguistics at
Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
, where he graduated in 1978, having studied concurrently at New York's Herzliah Yiddish Teachers' Seminary. He relocated to
London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
in 1978 to work on a doctorate (completed in 1982) on the origins of the Semitic component in the Yiddish language at the
University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...
, where he won the John Marshall Medal in Comparative Philology (1980). In his early linguistic work, he began to argue for "continual transmission" of the Semitic component in Yiddish from Hebrew through to
Aramaic The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in ...
through to Yiddish, challenging the standard "text theory" that postulated entrance principally via religious texts later on. He proposed novel reconstructions for parts of the proto-Yiddish vowel system, modifications in the classification of
Yiddish dialects Yiddish dialects are variants of the Yiddish language and are divided according to the region in Europe where each developed its distinctiveness. Linguistically, Yiddish is divided in distinct Eastern and Western dialects. While the Western diale ...
, and joined the school of Yiddish scholars that argues for a more easterly (
Danube basin The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , pa ...
) origin of Yiddish over the western (
Rhineland The Rhineland (german: Rheinland; french: Rhénanie; nl, Rijnland; ksh, Rhingland; Latinised name: ''Rhenania'') is a loosely defined area of Western Germany along the Rhine, chiefly its middle section. Term Historically, the Rhinelands ...
) hypothesis, bringing to the table Semitic component evidence; it was in that connection that he came across a thirteenth-century Hebrew and Aramaic prayerbook manuscript in the Bodleian that exhibited the vowel system he had earlier, in his thesis, reconstructed as underlying that of the Semitic component in Yiddish. Over the years he published papers in Yiddish and English on various "history of ideas" topics, including the role of Aramaic in Aramaic-Hebrew-Yiddish internal Ashkenazi trilingualism (he rejected the notion of a single fused Hebrew-hyphen-Aramaic); medieval rabbinic disputes over Yiddish; rabbinic contributions to Yiddish dialectology; the importance of the German underworld language
Rotwelsch Rotwelsch (, ''" beggar's foreign (language)"'') or Gaunersprache ( ''" crook's language"'') also Kochemer Loshn (from Yiddish "", "tongue of the wise") is a secret language, a cant or thieves' argot, spoken by groups (primarily marginalized gr ...
for Yiddish linguistics; Christian studies in Yiddish; and the 19th century roots of religious Yiddishism, among others. For eighteen years (1978–1996) he taught Yiddish Studies at Oxford, building the Oxford Programme in Yiddish. His contributions include initiating a new four-week summer course at four levels of language instruction (in 1982), the annual Stencl Lecture (from 1983), annual winter symposiums (from 1985);
University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...
BA, MSt and MPhil options (from 1982), and a doctoral program (from 1984), these being concentrated in the University's Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages. Some of his former doctoral students are today professors of Yiddish, at
Indiana University Indiana University (IU) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. Campuses Indiana University has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration of IUPUI. *Indiana Universi ...
(Bloomington) and
Düsseldorf Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian language, Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second- ...
among others. He founded the series ''Winter Studies in Yiddish'' in English (vol. 1 appeared in 1987), and ''Oksforder Yidish'' (or "Oxford Yiddish"), entirely in Yiddish (vol. 1 appeared in 1990). His posts, at the Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies (renamed the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies) were instructor and junior fellow (1978–1982), senior research fellow and director of Yiddish studies (1983–1994). In 1994 he founded the Oxford Institute for Yiddish Studies and served as its research director until 1997.''American Jewish Yearbook'', 1998, Vol. 98. Ed. David Singer. New York: American Jewish Committee, 1998. . p. 245. He was Research Fellow at St. Antony's College Oxford from 1986 to 1997, and a member of the Modern Language Faculty's Graduate Studies Committee from 1984 to 1997. After an initial trip to his ancestral Lithuania and
Belarus Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by ...
in 1990 (during which he negotiated an agreement enabling Lithuanian students to enroll in Oxford Jewish studies courses), Katz pioneered the mounting of in-situ post-Holocaust Yiddish dialectological and folkloristic expeditions in Eastern Europe. He focused on the "Lithuanian lands" (Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, etc.) and continues work on his Atlas of Northeastern Yiddish. He has amassed thousands of hours of recorded interviews with "the last of the Yiddish Mohicans" in these regions but as far as is known has thus far failed to find a permanent home for the materials. In early 2013 he began posting clips from his interviews of Boro Park Yiddish speakers gleaned from his return trips to his native Brooklyn. His publications on Yiddish language include his "Grammar of the Yiddish Language" (London, 1987) and his book in Yiddish, "Tikney takones. Fragn fun yidisher stilistik" (Oxford, 1993), both of which aimed to enhance the teaching of Yiddish as a vibrant language both spoken and for new literary and academic works, even if in (and for) small circles. In both works, he advocated a descriptivist stance, rejecting what he considered to be the excessive purism prevalent in the field, particularly in New York. He also (controversially) championed the traditionalist variant of modern Yiddish orthography, and was the author of the "Code of Yiddish Spelling" (Oxford, 1992). He twice founded and directed (one-time only) Yiddish teacher training programs: at Oxford, a one-year program in 1996, and at Vilnius, an intensive course in spring 2005. For a nonspecialist English readership he wrote a history of the language and its culture, "Words on Fire: The Unfinished Story of Yiddish" (Basic Books 2004, revised edition with added academic apparatus, 2007), which attracted both acclaim and robust criticism, particularly over his predictions of a vernacular future for Yiddish based in Haredi communities, and his contention that
modern Hebrew Modern Hebrew ( he, עברית חדשה, ''ʿivrít ḥadašá ', , '' lit.'' "Modern Hebrew" or "New Hebrew"), also known as Israeli Hebrew or Israeli, and generally referred to by speakers simply as Hebrew ( ), is the standard form of the H ...
could not replace the European-nuanced vibrancy of Yiddish. For years he wrote regular columns for the Forverts (1990s), and in more recent years for the
Algemeiner Journal The ''Algemeiner Journal'', known informally as ''The Algemeiner'', is a newspaper based in New York City that covers American and international Jewish and Israel-related news. History In 1972, Gershon Jacobson founded the Yiddish-language ...
, which seemed to have stopped with the departure of Y.Y. Jacobson as editor around 2010. In 2015, his book ''Yiddish and Power'' was published in the UK by Palgrave Macmillan. He is the author of a number of articles on Yiddish in encyclopedias (including
The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe ''The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe'' is a two-volume, English-language reference work on the history and culture of Eastern Europe Jewry in this region, prepared by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and published by Yale Univ ...
) and book introductions, including the Yivo's reprint of Alexander Harkavy's trilingual Yiddish-English-Hebrew dictionary. After a year as visiting professor at
Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...
(1998–1999), Katz relocated to
Vilnius Vilnius ( , ; see also other names) is the capital and largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the municipality of Vilnius). The population of Vilnius's functional urb ...
in 1999 in order to take up a new chair in Yiddish language, literature and culture at
Vilnius University Vilnius University ( lt, Vilniaus universitetas) is a public research university, oldest in the Baltic states and in Northern Europe outside the United Kingdom (or 6th overall following foundations of Oxford, Cambridge, St. Andrews, Glasgow and ...
, and to found the university's Center for Stateless Cultures, which he directed for its first two years. He had relocated his old Oxford Yiddish summer program to Vilnius a year earlier (summer 1998). In 2001, he co-founded the Vilnius Yiddish Institute at Vilnius University and remained its research director and primary instructor until 2010. His works on Litvak (Lithuanian Jewish) culture include the folio volume "Lithuanian Jewish Culture" (Baltos lankos, Vilnius 2004, revised edition 2010), "Windows to a Lost Jewish Past: Vilna Book Stamps" (Versus aureus, Vilnius 2008), and "Seven Kingdoms of the Litvaks" (International Cultural Program Center, Vilnius 2009). In 2009 he directed the "Jewish Lithuania" program for Summer Literary Seminars in Vilnius. He has proposed "Litvak Studies" as a potential program of study. He began to write short stories in Yiddish following his father's death in 1991, and published four collections in book form under the nom de plume Heershadovid Menkes (
Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...
: הירשע־דוד מעינקעס—''Hirshe-Dovid Meynkes''): Eldra Don, 1992; The Flat Peak, 1993; Tales of the Misnagdim from Vilna Province, 1996; Einstein from Svir and Other Yiddish Short Stories, 2020. After experimenting with modern themes in the 1990s, he abandoned them for the vanished life of old Jewish Lithuania, to some extent violating norms of modern Yiddish to write works set in older Jewish Lithuania in local dialect. Awards for his fiction came from within the secular Yiddish environment: the Hirsh Rosenfeld Award ( Canadian Jewish Congress, 1994), the Zhitlovsky Prize (Ikuf, 1996) the Itzik Manger Prize, in 1997, and the Leyb Rubinlicht Award (Leyvik House, 2020). In 1994 he founded at Oxford the then sole literary monthly magazine in Yiddish, "Yiddish Pen" and edited its first 27 issues. It did not, however, usher in the literary revival he had hoped for, and his own works of fiction received little recognition outside the narrow world of secular Yiddish culture. Still, translated anthologies of his short stories appeared in 2012, in English and in German, but received little critical attention. In 2001-2002 he was a
Guggenheim Fellow Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the a ...
in
Yiddish literature Yiddish literature encompasses all those belles-lettres written in Yiddish, the language of Ashkenazic Jewry which is related to Middle High German. The history of Yiddish, with its roots in central Europe and locus for centuries in Eastern Euro ...
. Katz, taken aback by the poverty he found among the last aged Yiddish speakers in Eastern Europe (many of them "flight survivors" who survived the war by fleeing to the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
, hence not eligible for aid under the narrow definition of "Holocaust survivor"), alerted the wider world to the issue in a 1999 op-ed in the Forward, which was cited by Judge Edward R. Korman in the
Swiss Banks Banking in Switzerland dates to the early eighteenth century through Switzerland's merchant trade and has, over the centuries, grown into a complex, regulated, and international industry. Banking is seen as emblematic of Switzerland, along with ...
settlement in the U.S. District Court in 2004. Katz began to work closely with the
American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, also known as Joint or JDC, is a Jewish relief organization based in New York City. Since 1914 the organisation has supported Jewish people living in Israel and throughout the world. The organization i ...
(JDC) on these issues, and he helped the founders of the Survivor Mitzvah Project by a group based in
Santa Monica, California Santa Monica (; Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 U.S. Census population was 93,076. Santa Monica is a popular resort town, owing t ...
. In 2012, he took part in the Channel 4 reality series "Jewish Mum of the Year" as one of the judging panel alongside Tracy-Ann Oberman and Richard Ferrer. Most of the reviews of his own appearance judged it negatively and he did not think much of the program himself. In 2013, he initiated a
Virtual Mini Museum of Old Jewish Vilna
with item descriptions in Yiddish and index in English. In June 2014, two articles in Tablet magazine focused on the recent history and status of Yiddish linguistics, including his own contributions (and controversies). Katz promptly responded (in Yiddish). In 2015, he embarked on a project to translate the (Hebrew) Bible into Lithuanian Yiddish. By early 2021, he had posted draft translations o
eighteen books
Only two appeared in hard copy pamphlet form
the Book of Ruth
in 2017, and, in memory of his mother, who died in 2019
the Book of Esther
in 2020, in which some of the more preposterous characters in the biblical narrative speak an extreme dialect form of Lithuanian Yiddish. In 2018, to honor the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the modern Lithuanian republic in 1918, he initiate
a new online Yiddish "mini-museum"
stressing interwar Yiddish-Lithuanian multicultural and bilingual life. The same year, he launched online a draft version of his ''Yiddish Cultural Dictionary'', which is an English-Yiddish dictionary that stresses cultural specificities, with all discussions of entries in Yiddish; rooted in his descriptivist perspective in Yiddish stylistics, it contains detailed commentary about usage in both Northeastern (Lithuanian) and Central (Polish) dialects of Yiddish. By late 2021, it had around 20,000 entries and half a million words of text. In late 2021, he initiated th
Lithuanian Yiddish Video Archive (LYVA)
by putting on line several hundred (unedited) videos from his thirty years of expeditions to the last native speakers of Northeastern ("Lithuanian") Yiddish in Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, northeastern Poland and eastern Ukraine.


Holocaust history and human rights activism

After observing the Vilnius scene for years, Dovid Katz began in 2008 to publicly challenge the double genocide theory of
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
and the accusations against Holocaust survivors who survived by joining the
Jewish partisans Jewish partisans were fighters in irregular military groups participating in the Jewish resistance movement against Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II. A number of Jewish partisan groups operated across Nazi-occupied Euro ...
. In a Rothschild Foundation London seminar in February that year he proposed the term "Holocaust obfuscation" for an East European trend to downgrade the Holocaust into one of two purportedly equal genocides (without actually denying any deaths); he refined the term in a 2009 paper. When, in May 2008, Lithuanian prosecutors launched investigations of two more elderly Holocaust survivors, Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky and Dr.
Rachel Margolis Rachel Margolis (28 October 1921 – 6 July 2015) was a Holocaust survivor, partisan, biologist and Holocaust historian. Background Margolis was born in Vilnius, Lithuania in 1921. In 1941, when the Nazis occupied Lithuania, Margolis was sent ...
, Katz embarked on a new activist phase of his life. He became a staunch advocate for the accused Holocaust survivors who were under investigation, and played a role in mobilizing the Western diplomatic community in Vilnius to support them. Results, achieved in partnership with Vilnius-based diplomats, included a reception by the Irish ambassador for Ms. Brantsovsky, awarding her a certificate, on 3 June 2008 (the same day the
Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism The Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism was a declaration which was initiated by the Czech government and signed on 3 June 2008 by prominent European politicians, former political prisoners and historians, among them former ...
was signed), and a certificate of merit from the American ambassador. This was followed in August that year by a letter from nine NATO-member embassies to Dr.
Rachel Margolis Rachel Margolis (28 October 1921 – 6 July 2015) was a Holocaust survivor, partisan, biologist and Holocaust historian. Background Margolis was born in Vilnius, Lithuania in 1921. In 1941, when the Nazis occupied Lithuania, Margolis was sent ...
in Rehovot, Israel, and, in 2010, by a letter from seven European ambassadors that noted the legalization of swastikas that year, renewed
Holocaust denial Holocaust denial is an antisemitic conspiracy theory that falsely asserts that the Nazi genocide of Jews, known as the Holocaust, is a myth, fabrication, or exaggeration. Holocaust deniers make one or more of the following false statements: ...
, and the attempts to "equalize" Nazi and Soviet crimes. Professor Katz was apparently the first to publicly challenge the 2008 Prague Declaration in two May 2009 op-eds, in
The Jewish Chronicle ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...
and ''
The Irish Times ''The Irish Times'' is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper and online digital publication. It launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Ruadhán Mac Cormaic. It is published every day except Sundays. ''The Irish Times'' is considered a newspaper ...
''. He subsequently contributed articles to ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' (in 2010), ''Tablet'' magazine (2010), ''
The Jerusalem Post ''The Jerusalem Post'' is a broadsheet newspaper based in Jerusalem, founded in 1932 during the British Mandate of Palestine by Gershon Agron as ''The Palestine Post''. In 1950, it changed its name to ''The Jerusalem Post''. In 2004, the paper ...
'' (2011), the London Jewish News (2012), ''
The Times of Israel ''The Times of Israel'' is an Israeli multi-language online newspaper that was launched in 2012. It was co-founded by Israeli journalist David Horovitz, who is also the founding editor, and American billionaire investor Seth Klarman.
'' (2012), and other publications. He has lectured on these issues at the Jewish National Fund in
Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...
, Australia (May 2011),
Lund University , motto = Ad utrumque , mottoeng = Prepared for both , established = , type = Public research university , budget = SEK 9 billion Sweden (May 2010),
Monash University Monash University () is a public research university based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Named for prominent World War I general Sir John Monash, it was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the state. The university h ...
in
Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...
(June 2011), Musée d'Aquitaine in Bordeaux (March 2012),
Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and was ...
(Nov 2008),
University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
(Nov 2008), University of South Carolina at Columbia (March 2011), the
Woodrow Wilson Center The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (or Wilson Center) is a quasi-government entity and think tank which conducts research to inform public policy. Located in the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Was ...
's Kennan Institute in
Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
(March 2011),
University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...
(April 2009), and
Yeshiva University Yeshiva University is a private Orthodox Jewish university with four campuses in New York City."About YU
on the Yeshiva Universi ...
(March 2011), among others. His professorship at
Vilnius University Vilnius University ( lt, Vilniaus universitetas) is a public research university, oldest in the Baltic states and in Northern Europe outside the United Kingdom (or 6th overall following foundations of Oxford, Cambridge, St. Andrews, Glasgow and ...
was terminated after eleven years in 2010 after he published several articles critical of Lithuanian prosecutors' campaign against Holocaust survivors who joined the partisans. He began (and continues) t
lecture quite widely
In 2016 was appointed professor (on an adjunct basis) at Vilnius Gediminas Technical University (VGTU)
in the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Studies
where he taught courses in Creative Writing and Ethics, until taking leave in 2020. In September 2009 Katz launched the openly partisan online journal ''HolocaustInTheBaltics.com'', which was renamed a year later ''DefendingHistory.com'', and came to include contributions by several dozen authors; it has sections on the regional glorification of local Nazi collaborators, and the related "exotic tourism" as well as Opinion, Books, Film and History sections. Over time, DefendingHistory has also become one of the addresses for resources in Litvak (Lithuanian Jewish) affairs, including culture, history, news, tourism and " dark tourism." In 2012 he co-authored (with Danny Ben-Moshe) '' The Seventy Years Declaration'', signed on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference by 71 European parliamentarians (MPs and MEPs, including Conservatives and Liberals as well as Social Democrats and Labor, also—eight Lithuanian Social Democratic parliamentarians). He was invited to present it formally to
Martin Schulz Martin Schulz (born 20 December 1955) is a German politician who served as Leader of the Social Democratic Party from 2017 to 2018, and was a Member of the Bundestag (MdB) from 2017 to 2021. Previously he was President of the European Parliam ...
, president of the
European Parliament The European Parliament (EP) is one of the legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it adopts ...
, in Strasbourg on March 14, 2012. Katz's work on the Holocaust in Lithuania and related antisemitism issues was among the subjects of a 2010 BBC world service program by
Wendy Robbins Wendy Robbins (born 30 October 1963 in Bromley, Kent) is a British radio and television presenter and producer. She presents '' The House I Grew Up In'' broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and reports for ''The One Show'' on BBC1. Career Prior to her caree ...
, and a 2012 Australian documentary film by Marc Radomsky and Danny Ben-Moshe. He has participated in various public debates on these subjects,"Wiesenthal Centre To OSCE Human Rights Conference 'Prague Declaration' is "A Project to Delete the Holocaust from European History".
2009 News Releases.
Simon Wiesenthal Center The Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) is a Jewish human rights organization established in 1977 by Rabbi Marvin Hier. The center is known for Holocaust research and remembrance, hunting Nazi war criminals, combating anti-Semitism, tolerance educat ...
. October 5, 2009. Retrieved 2 November 2009.
and has publicly disagreed with Yale Professor Timothy D. Snyder on the related history, in a 2010 ''Guardian'' debate preceding publication of Snyder's ''
Bloodlands ''Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin'' is a 2010 book by Yale historian Timothy D. Snyder. It is about mass murders committed during World War II in territories controlled by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. In this book, Snyde ...
'' in a book review in ''East European Jewish Studies'' (2011), and an open letter during the controversy over the reburial with full honors in 2012 of the 1941 Nazi puppet prime minister in Lithuania. He also engaged in public debate with the director of YIVO and the Economist's Edward Lucas. His work in the field of
human rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...
has included on-site protest and monitoring of state-sanctioned city-center
nationalist Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: Th ...
parades in
Vilnius Vilnius ( , ; see also other names) is the capital and largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the municipality of Vilnius). The population of Vilnius's functional urb ...
and Kaunas in Lithuania, and
Waffen-SS The (, "Armed SS") was the combat branch of the Nazi Party's ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) organisation. Its formations included men from Nazi Germany, along with Waffen-SS foreign volunteers and conscripts, volunteers and conscripts from both occup ...
parades in the Latvian capital Riga, taking note also of anti-Polish, anti-Russian, anti-Roma and anti-gay signs, slogans and publications. In 2013 he added an
LGBT rights Rights affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender ( LGBT) people vary greatly by country or jurisdiction—encompassing everything from the legal recognition of same-sex marriage to the death penalty for homosexuality. Notably, ...
section to ''Defending History''. Twice, in 2010 and in 2011, he appeared in
Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...
to report on what he regarded as "sensationally absurd" trials of Holocaust historian and Nazi-hunter Efraim Zuroff, director of the Wiesenthal Center's Israel office, on charges of "libel" leveled by a twice-convicted Nazi war criminal whom Dr. Zuroff had exposed. On the subject of free speech, he has been a vocal critic of Lithuania's 2010 law forbidding the denial or trivialization of Soviet and Nazi genocide, which he believes, in agreement with Leonidas Donskis, to constitute criminalization of debate. When the law was applied to a left-wing politician with whom he disagreed wholly on the 1991 events in question, Katz nevertheless felt it important to speak out for free speech, and, in a reply to Rokas Grajauskas in Lithuanian Foreign Policy Review made clear his view that objecting to Holocaust Obfuscation in no way signifies reluctance to expose Stalinist crimes. In recent years, Katz has registered concern regarding purported policy shifts toward Holocaust Obfuscation and Double Genocide by the
United States Department of State The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government responsible for the country's fore ...
, in articles in ''Tablet'' (2010), ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' (2010) ''
Algemeiner Journal The ''Algemeiner Journal'', known informally as ''The Algemeiner'', is a newspaper based in New York City that covers American and international Jewish and Israel-related news. History In 1972, Gershon Jacobson founded the Yiddish-language ...
'' (2011), ''The Times of Israel'' (2012) and a list of publications maintained on ''DefendingHistory.com''. He also spoke out regarding alliances binding the UK's Conservative Party with controversial East European right wing politics, in ''The Irish Times'' (2009), ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' (2010), ''
The Jewish Chronicle ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...
'' (2010), and the ''London Jewish News'' (2012). Analogously, he challenged Israeli foreign policy on alleged acequiscence to Holocaust Obfuscation in return for diplomatic support, in venues including the '' Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs'',
The Jerusalem Post ''The Jerusalem Post'' is a broadsheet newspaper based in Jerusalem, founded in 1932 during the British Mandate of Palestine by Gershon Agron as ''The Palestine Post''. In 1950, it changed its name to ''The Jerusalem Post''. In 2004, the paper ...
, ''The Times of Israel '' and ''DefendingHistory.com''. In the spring of 2011, Katz was Jan Randa Visiting Scholar at the Australian Center for Jewish Civilization (ACJC) at
Monash University Monash University () is a public research university based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Named for prominent World War I general Sir John Monash, it was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the state. The university h ...
in Melbourne where he lectured on both Yiddish Studies and Holocaust issues. He has worked to define the new and "nuanced" elitist East European antisemitism and its success in attracting unsuspecting westerners to help provide political cover. He presented findings at Yale University and the
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (or Wilson Center) is a quasi-government entity and think tank which conducts research to inform public policy. Located in the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Wash ...
in 2011, and at a December 13, 2012 ISGAP event at Fordham University in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
. He participated in the April 18, 2013 seminar on " Red equals Brown issues" in Berlin, and a May 27–28, 2013 conference in Riga on Holocaust commemoration in post-communist Eastern Europe. A Spring 2016 lecture tour included lectures on Yiddish, Litvak and Holocaust topics at the University of Toronto and York University in Toronto; UCLA in Los Angeles; ISGAP, Baruch College, and the Mid-Manhattan New York Public Library in New York; Fairfield University and Yale in Connecticut. In Sept. 2016 he wa
appointed professor at another university in Vilnius
VGTU, in its Department of Philosophy and Cultural Studies. Germany's Federal Agency for Civic Education (FACE, German: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (bpb)) hired Katz in 2021 t
classify today's historical significance of eighty years since Operation Barbarossa (Germany's attack on the Soviet Union)
where the Nazis (prior to the "Wannseekonferenz") experienced that Holocaust in the Eastern Territories ("the Bloodlands") was "doable", not least because nationalist leaders in the Baltic States and the Ukraine, hated the Soviet Union and Russia much more than collaborating with Nazis. Bandera, Norieka and Skirpa who's ideas were responsible for mass killings of Jews and Poles, still today (2023) are honored by street names and plaques as freedom fighters in their respective countries. Unexpectedly for many in his circles, he became, in 2015, a staunch opponent of plans to locate a national convention center on the grounds of Vilnius's 15th century-origin old Jewish cemetery. His activities included helping inspire an array of international published protest statements, maintaining a monitoring section in ''Defending History''. One summary of his views appeared in ''The Times of Israel'' in late 2015. He has argued that the rights of the dead, especially those in long-ago paid-for burial plots, include the right to be left in peace. Katz keep
an online record of his published writings
and a separate list of papers on Holocaust Studies i
academic format
A few reflections on his life were recorded in April 2016 by Larry Yudelson in ''The Jewish Standard,'' and in August of the same year by Inga Liutkevičienė in ''Bernardinai.lt.''See Inga Liutkevičienė, "My Father Taught Me to be Proud that We Are Litvaks" in Bernardinai.lt, August 5, 2016 (https://www.bernardinai.lt/straipsnis/2016-08-05-dovydas-kacas-tevas-mane-ismoke-didziuotis-tuo-kad-priklausome-litvakams/147387 ).


References


External links


DovidKatz.net
Dovid Katz's website
DefendingHistory.com
web journal founded and edited by Dovid Katz
Academia.Edu
Dovid Katz's papers
Dovid Katz's Yiddish Cultural Dictionary
{{DEFAULTSORT:Katz, Dovid 1956 births Living people Fellows of St Antony's College, Oxford Alumni of the University of London 21st-century American historians 21st-century American male writers American male non-fiction writers Columbia University alumni Historians of the Holocaust Jewish historians Linguists of Yiddish Grammarians of Yiddish Lithuanian Jews American people of Lithuanian-Jewish descent People from Brooklyn Yiddish-language writers Academic staff of Vilnius University Academics of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies Yiddish-speaking people Historians from New York (state) Itzik Manger Prize recipients