Since the outbreak of the current crisis in Israel/Palestine, politicians, activists, and observers have often invoked the Holocaust when discussing Hamas’s October 7th attacks in southern Israel that killed 1,400 Israelis and migrant workers. The attacks have widely been referred to as “the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust,” while heads of state and analysts alike have placed Hamas on a direct continuum with the Nazis or deployed Holocaust imagery in discussing the attacks. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for example, told German Chancellor Olaf Scholz that Hamas are “the new Nazis,” while Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan arrived at his address to the UN Security Council wearing a yellow star emblazoned with the words “Never Again.” Such rhetoric and stunts have accompanied calls for mass violence in Gaza, where more than 10,000 Palestinians have already been killed in a siege and bombardment campaign that many experts have called genocide.
Jewish Currents and Diaspora Alliance invite you to a conversation on the uses and abuses of Holocaust memory in the context of current events in Israel/Palestine, featuring three experts in the field. The event will ask: Do such comparisons clarify or obscure our understanding of the violence of October 7th and its aftermath? And what are the dangers of comparing the current crisis to the Nazi genocide of six million Jews?
Please note: By signing up here, you will receive a Zoom link to view the webinar on the day of the event. If you have any trouble accessing the event, you can also view live it on the Jewish Currents YouTube channel.
This live event and its recording will have automated closed captioning. For accommodation requests or questions about accessibility, please reach out to events@jewishcurrents.org.
Omer Bartov is a professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University and the author of Genocide, the Holocaust and Israel-Palestine.
Raz Segal is an associate professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University and the endowed professor in the study of modern genocide.
Jelena Subotić is a professor of political science at Georgia State University and the author of Red Star, Yellow Star: Holocaust Remembrance After Communism.
Pete Kiehart
Linda Kinstler (moderator) is the author of Come to this Court and Cry: How the Holocaust Ends and a contributing writer to Jewish Currents.
(Photo credit: Pete Kiehart)
Diaspora Alliance is an international organization dedicated to fighting antisemitism and its instrumentalization by promoting the values of a multiracial democracy.
