David Cesarani OBE (13 November 1956 – 25 October 2015) was an English historian who specialised in Jewish history, especially the Holocaust.[1] He also wrote several biographies, including Arthur Koestler: The Homeless Mind (1998).[1]
Contents
Early Life & Education
Cesarini was born in London to Henry, a hairdresser, and Sylvia (nee Packman). An only child, he won a scholarship to Latymer Upper School, in west London and went to Queens' College, Cambridge in 1976, where he gained a first in history. A master’s degree in Jewish history at Columbia University, New York working with the renowned authority Arthur Hertzberg, shaped the rest of his career. His doctorate at St Antony's College, Oxford, looked into aspects of the history of the interwar Anglo-Jewish community.
Academic Career
Cesarini held positions at the University of Leeds, Queen Mary University of London and at the Wiener Library in London, where he was director for two periods in the 1990s. He was Professor of Modern Jewish history at the University of Southampton from 2000 to 2004, and Research Professor in History at Royal Holloway, University of London from 2004 until his death.[2]
Later work and politics on Holocaust
Cesarani was a member of the Home Office Holocaust Memorial Day Strategic Group and was once Director of the AHRC Parkes Centre, part of the Parkes Institute for the Study of Jewish/non-Jewish Relations. He is co-editor of the journal Patterns of Prejudice and the Parkes-Wiener Series of books on Jewish Studies (published by Vallentine-Mitchell).
Cesarani campaigned against David Irving, the Holocaust denier, alongside fellow academic Peter Longerich. At times, his campaigning itself caused controversy, such as the occasion he reputedly suggested that the Irving case revealed free speech was something that should be strictly controlled.[3] Journalist David Guttenplan commented Cesarani's remarks were "more dangerous than anything David Irving has ever said or written."[4]
In February 2005, Cesarani was awarded an OBE for "services to Holocaust Education and advising the government with regard to the establishment of Holocaust Memorial Day".[5] Cesarani was strongly critical of Hannah Arendt in his Eichmann biography, which itself was sharply criticized in a review that appeared in The New York Times Book Review. Noting that Arendt and Eichmann shared similar backgrounds, Cesarani suggested that they shared a common disdain for Eichmann's prosecutor, which the reviewer characterized as a "slur reveals a writer in control neither of his material nor of himself."[6]
Views on the Israeli–Arab conflict
He saw the controversy over the Israeli West Bank barrier as being unimportant, and that it is used as a photo opportunity for the world's media. Of the wall itself "it's a concern if land is misappropriated from the Palestinians, or if Palestinian lives become intolerable, but its true significance is in the total disintegration of trust between Jews and Palestinians", though he also believed some reactions to the barrier have been under-reported, for example that "some Arab towns, especially in southern Galilee, have welcomed the wall as a means of preventing Palestinians entering Israeli towns and adding to the unemployment and instability."[7]
He recalled his experience while working in a kibbutz: "We were always told that the pile of rubble at the top of the hill was a Crusader castle. It was only much later that I discovered it was an Arab village that had been ruined in the Six-Day war."[7]
Cesarani believed that Israel's right to exist is unquestionable, and that "[d]enying the right of Israel to exist begs some serious questions."[7]
Bibliography
As author
- Justice Delayed: How Britain Became a Refuge for Nazi War Criminals (Heinemann, 1992) Reissued by Phoenix Press in 2001. ISBN 1-84212-126-X
- The Jewish Chronicle and Anglo-Jewry 1841-1991 (Cambridge University Press, 1994) ISBN 0-521-43434-3
- Arthur Koestler: The Homeless Mind. (Heinemann, 1998) Reissued by the Free Press. ISBN 0-684-86720-6
- Eichmann: His Life and Crimes, which was published in the USA under the title: Becoming Eichmann: Rethinking the Life, Crimes, and Trial of a "Desk Murderer" (Da Capo Press, 2006) ISBN 0-306-81476-5
- Major Farran's Hat: The Untold Story of the Struggle to Establish the Jewish State (Da Capo Press, 2009) ISBN 978-0-306-81845-5
As editor
- The Making of Modern Anglo-Jewry (1990)
- The Final Solution: Origins and Implementation (1994)
- Genocide and Rescue: The Holocaust in Hungary, 1944 (1997)
- Port Jews: Jewish Communities in Cosmopolitan Maritime Trading Centuries, 1550-1950 (2002)
- "Bystanders" to the Holocaust: A Re-evaluation (2002)
- Citizenship, Nationality and Migration in Europe (with Mary Fulbrook 2003, first ed. 1996)
- Holocaust. Critical Concepts in Historical Studies. 6 vols. (2004)
References
- ^ a b "Prominent British Holocaust Historian David Cesarani Dies at 58". Haaretz. October 26, 2015. Retrieved 26 October 2015.
- ^ The Guardian, Obituary, published 26 October 2015
- ^ "David Cesarani: The limits of free speech". the Guardian. Retrieved 2015-10-26.
- ^ Guttenplan, David (2002). The Holocaust on Trial: History, Justice and the David Irving Libel Case (2nd Edition). London: Granta. p. 298. ISBN 1-86207-486-0.
- ^ "Professor David Cesarani". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved 6 July 2012.
- ^ Gewen, Barry (14 May 2006). "The Everyman of Genocide". The New York Times. Retrieved 27 April 2012.
- ^ a b c Crace, John (12 October 2004). "David Cesarani: The making of a defiant moderate". The Guardian. Retrieved 19 April 2011.
External links
- Page on Professor David Cesarani at the RHUL History Department website
- David Cesarani at the Internet Movie Database
- Review of Cesarani's biography of Adolf Eichmann
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