From Institute News No. 5 December 2004
New Research
Holocaust Teaching and Research in Israeli Universities, 1947-1967

By Dr. Boaz Cohen

How did the Holocaust—essentially a national and personal trauma—become a subject for academic enquiry? Who were the first researchers, and what institutions facilitated this research? How did the universities respond to those who called for Holocaust teaching and research, and who were the first to teach academic courses on the subject?

Following is a brief overview of the origins and development of Holocaust research and teaching in Israeli universities from 1947 to 1967. However, it is important to note that, for almost half of the period covered in this synopsis, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem was the only existing university in Israel.  The Hebrew University continued to maintain its senior position even after the establishment of Bar-Ilan, Tel Aviv, and Haifa universities.

Calls to initiate academic research of the Holocaust in Israel were aired as early as 1947. That year the "International Conference on the Holocaust and Martyrdom in Our Time" was convened in Jerusalem under the British Mandate. It was organized by the budding Yad Vashem memorial institution in cooperation with the Hebrew University. Close to 200 participants from Yishuv and Zionist organizations, from the Historical Commissions established by survivors in Europe, and from the United States attended this conference.

Arieh Bauminger, a survivor and a former member of the Historical Commission in Lublin, proposed at the conference to establish a “Chair for the Destruction of European Jewry."  Bauminger claimed that scholarly research was mandatory in order to bridge the mental and psychological gap between the survivors and those who “never saw a Gestapo or a SS man during those years.” Moreover, from his point of view, only in Eretz Israel did Holocaust research stand a chance to develop further. Holocaust research carried out in the countries where the Holocaust had taken place would be subject to political and ideological pressures. Even Jewish historians working there would have, in his view, their hands tied. Jerusalem, it was suggested, was the natural venue for this research, as this was the site of the prestigious Hebrew University with its Jewish-academic infrastructure.

At the time no progress was made on Bauminger's proposal. The outbreak of the Israeli War of Independence and the subsequent move of the Hebrew University from Mt. Scopus to temporary quarters in the western part of Jerusalem may all have been factors in the lack of response.

The next time the Hebrew University had to face the issue of Holocaust research was in 1949. It was approached with a proposal to establish an “Institute for the Research of the History of the Jewish People During the Holocaust.” The proposal was prepared by Dr. Mark Dworzecki, a physician from Vilna who had lived in the Vilna ghetto and in the camps in Estonia. At the time of the proposal, he was living in France, where he was active in survivor organizations.

Dworzecki wrote and lectured extensively on various aspects of the Holocaust. As a physician he dwelt mainly on issues connected with disease and health in the ghettos and of the participation of German doctors in the “Final Solution.” For him, Holocaust research was a sacred mission and a calling. As long as Holocaust survivors were alive, he asserted, the research of the Jewish history of the Holocaust era would assume an important role in current Jewish research.

The Hebrew University did not accept Dworzecki's proposal. While they cited a lack of funding as the main obstacle to its implementation, it appears that the scholars at the Hebrew University did not regard Holocaust research and teaching as a viable academic undertaking. There was not yet any academic literature, proper documentation, and, more importantly, not enough perspective to treat the Holocaust academically. The university certainly did not look upon Dworzecki, who was not a trained historian, as the right man for the job. Nevertheless, as we shall see, Dworzecki could not be deterred from the goal he had set for himself.

The public debate over the reparations’ agreement with Germany and the subsequent establishment of Yad Vashem by the Knesset, in 1953, left no mark on the attitude of the Hebrew University. No attempts were made to teach or research the Holocaust within those hallowed walls. The debate on Holocaust research moved to another venue.

The task of Holocaust research was taken up by Yad Vashem, which was then presided over by erstwhile historian Ben Zion Dinur, the minister of Education at the time. Dinur emphasized the research aspect of Yad Vashem and inducted a number of his students from the Hebrew University into key posts in the institution. Among them were Daniel Cohen and Shaul Esh (Eschwege). He also recruited a number of survivor historians, such as Yosef Kermish and Nahman Blumental, who had been active in the Central Jewish Historical Commission in Warsaw. 

As a first step to institutionalize the research, Dinur established a Research Department at Yad Vashem. It was initially headed by Dinur’s disciple Prof. Israel Halperin of the Hebrew University.  After a promising start, at which time plans for joint projects with YIVO were formulated, tensions began to arise within Yad Vashem. On the one side were the survivor historians who had experienced the destruction of East European Jewry firsthand. They began researching the Holocaust as soon as Poland was liberated and published essays and monographs on aspects of Holocaust history even before coming to Israel. They were drawing on the East European Jewish historical tradition of historical writing as a facet of national awakening; thus, laymen were also included in historical projects. They claimed that the Hebrew University graduates had no understanding of the processes and policies involved in the Holocaust and no grasp of the relevant body of documentation. Those graduates were, in their eyes, not competent enough to research the subject. 

On the other side were Dinur’s students from the Hebrew University. Most of them were immigrants from Germany, younger than the survivor historians, and had received their academic education at the Hebrew University. There they were nurtured on the German academic tradition of stringent research done by professional historians working within a university. They claimed that the survivors were not professionals and therefore were not up to the task of producing professional academic research of the Holocaust.

Dinur himself directed the institution to deal with the Holocaust mainly within the long-term contexts of Jewish history in general. This was evident in the Pinkas Ha’kehilot (“Book of the Communities”) project, which was, in its initial format, slated to encompass the history of all European Jewish communities from their origins in the early Middle Ages up to the Holocaust. This was to be a huge project in which the chapters concerning the Holocaust would be only a minor section. To date the project has not yet been completed. 

All things considered, there was no “output” of books or other publications on the Holocaust from Yad Vashem. This compared very badly with the publication record of similar institutions, such as the Centre de Documentation de Juive Contemporaine in Paris or the Central Jewish Historical Commission in Warsaw. This situation was also not acceptable to the Claims Conference, which was the financial source for most of Yad Vashem's activities, or to the general survivor public. They wanted to see actual products—books, encyclopedias, almanacs, and the like—dealing with the Holocaust and the Jewish experiences during it. However, Yad Vashem was unable to supply the desired goods. Dinur’s projects were long-term undertakings, and the tension that existed between the survivor historians and Dinur’s students stifled other publications.

The frustration he experienced with the situation at Yad Vashem no doubt contributed to Dinur's decision to enter into negotiations with the Hebrew University regarding a joint Holocaust research institute. By 1957, the negotiations were completed. Full control over the institute was given to the university, while all the funding would be provided by Yad Vashem. Dinur envisioned the institute as a bridge between Yad Vashem and the academe. 

One of the major goals was to attract young students to Holocaust research. The Hebrew University insisted on widening the scope of the research in the institute to encompass modern Jewish history; therefore, the institute was named “The Institute for Research on the Destruction of European Jewry and its History in the Former Generations.” It was headed by Prof. Israel Halperin, and he recruited a small group of researchers, including Bela Vago, Leni Yahil, Uriel Tal, and Nathaniel Katzburg. The researchers worked independently, pursuing their personal spheres of interest, which also became the bases for their Ph.D. theses.

Most of the researchers did not work on the Holocaust per se. For example, Uriel Tal researched "The Organized Struggle of the Jewish Community in Germany Against the Modern Anti-Semitic Movement from the Completion of the Emancipation up to the Weimar Republic (1869-1919)."  Nathaniel Katzburg worked on "Anti-Semitism in Hungary and the Jewish Defense from the Beginning of the Emancipation up to the First World War."

The absence of Holocaust research per se in the institution gave rise to widespread criticism. Voices calling to close the institution and to use the funds for projects directly connected with the Holocaust were heard inside Yad Vashem, among the public, and even in the Claims Conference. The institute was a major bone of contention in the public dispute over Yad Vashem's mission during the late 1950s. By the early 1960s, the institute was all but swallowed up by the Institute of Contemporary History at the Hebrew University.

While, in the short run, the institute did not live up to its expectations, it did have a subsequent impact on Israeli Holocaust teaching and research. In the span of ten years, when Holocaust research became commonplace in Israeli universities, the ex-fellows of the institute were there to lead that research. Bela Vago and Leni Yahil in Haifa University, Uriel Tal and Daniel Carpi in Tel Aviv University, and Nathaniel Katzburg in Bar-Ilan University taught, carried out important research, and nurtured the next generation of Holocaust scholars.

In 1959, Shaul Esh began to teach Holocaust courses at the Hebrew University. Esh specialized in ancient Jewish literature and was initiated into Holocaust research by working as the publications editor at Yad Vashem. This was the (sole) payoff of Dinur's policy of staffing Yad Vashem with Hebrew University graduates.  

In the 1959-1960 academic year, a chair of Holocaust research was established at Bar-Ilan University by Mark Dworzecki. Not taking the Hebrew University's 1949 “no” for a definite answer, he spent the 1950s trying to find a teaching post in Holocaust studies at one of the new universities emerging at the time (Tel Aviv and Bar-Ilan), or in other departments at the Hebrew University (e.g., The School of Social Studies).

After the establishment of Bar-Ilan University (1955), he relentlessly lobbied its heads, Mizrahi politicians, and public figures with influence on the university. He finally succeeded and, at the end of 1959, started teaching in the first-ever chair of Holocaust research established in the world. Funding for the chair was promised by survivor organizations. Dworezcki's course was made mandatory for all Jewish history students and remains so until today. This was a unique phenomenon of a survivor establishing and teaching in the first chair for Holocaust research funded by survivors. 

In the wake of Bar-Ilan University, the new University of Haifa introduced Holocaust studies at the end of the 1960s. (Shaul Esh taught there first, but was killed in a car accident in 1968, on his way home from teaching.)

By 1967, Holocaust research and teaching had become part of the curriculum at all existing Israeli universities. Holocaust research had become a recognized academic discipline. The stage was now set for the great leap of academic Israeli Holocaust research of the 1970s. That decade saw an increase in the number of courses and in the number of students working on MA and Ph.D. theses. Israeli Holocaust research has begun to take its place in the center of the developing international community of Holocaust scholars.

Dr. Boaz Cohen received his PhD from the Bar-Ilan University. The topic of his research was “Holocaust Research in Israel 1945-1980: Trends, Characteristics, Developments”.  Dr. Cohen teaches at the Jewish Science Department at Shaanan College in Haifa. His areas of expertise include the Holocaust and its context in the Israeli Society and its research institutions, and the shaping of Holocaust memories in Israel.