From Kishinev to Sderot

From Kishinev to Sderot: Considering ‘Spectacular Violence’ and Mass Murder against Jewish Communities

Offered in person and on Zoom.

Presented by Edward Westermann, Texas A&M University-San Antonio

Professor Edward B. Westermann will examine organized violence against Jewish communities ranging from pogroms in Eastern Europe, to mass murder during the Shoah, and finally to the massacres of October 7 by considering the historical contexts and specific events related to each case. It evaluates the motives and actions of the perpetrators within a framework of religious, racial, and political antisemitism.

Edward B. Westermann received his doctorate from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and is a Regents Professor of History and a Piper Professor of 2023 at Texas A&M University-San Antonio. His latest book, Drunk on Genocide: Alcohol and Mass Murder in Nazi Germany appeared with Cornell University Press in 2021 and received the 2023 Yad Vashem International Book Prize for Holocaust Research. From January 2019 until September 2021, he served as a Commissioner on the Texas Holocaust and Genocide Commission.