Yehudit.Dori@mail.huji.ac.il, Academia.edu
Major scholarly fields of interest:
Holocaust and memory, Holocaust trials, History of the Israeli law system.
Current Projects:
A trial without a defendant: the trial of Dr. Josef Mengele in Jerusalem
The research reveals the records of a mock trial which was conducted in 1985 in Jerusalem for SS officer, Josef Mengele, in the absence of the accused. At the heart of the proceedings stood the testimonies of 30 Auschwitz survivors, which were intended to constitute evidentiary material that would serve as proof of Mengele’s crimes when he would be brought to a "real" criminal trial. The research seeks to examine the difference of a criminal proceedings versus other stages, including semi-legal proceedings, for the purposes of documentation, commemoration and shaping the collective memory of the Holocaust. Read more
Gabriel Bach and the Prosecution of Nazis in the State of Israel
The research reviews the main contributions of prosecutor and Justice Gabriel Bach regarding four legal affairs in which the Holocaust and its perpetrators were prosecuted in the Israeli court: the appeals proceeding in the Gruenwald-Kastner trial (1957), the Eichmann trial (1960-1962), the efforts to prosecute and extradite Gustav Franz Wagner (1978-1979), and the Demjanjuk trial (1993). The research proposes an historical and legal explanation of Bach's actions and attitudes towards bringing Nazi criminals to trial and to present a credible picture of the evolution of Israel’s legal efforts vis à vis Nazi criminals and their collaborators over the years. Read more
Education:
2018: PhD, Hebrew University, Faculty of Law.
2011: LL.M Hebrew University, Faculty of Law (magna cum laude).
2007: LL.B Hebrew University, Faculty of Law and Faculty of Humanities (magna cum laude) .
Post-Doctoral Research:
2022-2021: Research fellow, Jacob Robinson Institute for the History of Individual and Collective Rights, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
2021-2020: a member of The Young Scholars Forum in the Humanities and Social Sciences, the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, “Racism, Antisemitism, Genocide: The Holocaust in Its Historical, Ideological and Cultural Contexts", headed by Prof. Israel Bartal
2021-2020: Research fellow, Faculty of Law, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
2017-2018: Research fellow, the Simon Dubnow Institute for Jewish History and Culture, Leipzig, Germany
2017-2018: Research fellow, "the History of the Hebrew University 1948-1967" research project, The Herman Institute of Contemporary Jewry
Publications:
Books
Forthcoming - Yehudit Dori Deston, The Last Trial: the Demjanjuk Trial and the End of Nazi Prosecution in Israel (The Hebrew University Magnes press, 2023) (in Hebrew).
Forthcoming - Yehudit Dori Deston, Der Demjanjuk-Prozess, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht (Schriften des Dubnow-Instituts, Bd. 35, 2023) (in German).
Articles
Yehudit Dori Deston, "'When one Door Closes, Another Opens': The Demjanjuk Trials in Israel (1986-1993) and in Germany (2009-2011)", 14 Lessons and Legacies (Tim Cole and Simone Gigliotti, eds., Northwestern University Press, 2021).
Yehudit Dori Deston, "Gabriel Bach and the Holocaust trials: four affairs and one memory", 46 the Law Reviews Forum (31.3.2022) (in Hebrew).
Yehudit Dori Deston, Dan Porat, "A Prisoner, Legislator, and Jurist: Joseph Lamm’s Legal Legacy in Relation to the Nazis and Nazi Collaborators (Punishment) Law, 1950," (Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Vol. 37, 2023).
Book chapter
Forthcoming - Yehudit Dori Deston, "It is our mission to prepare law-trained professionals to serve the public and the administration in the Jewish state': the establishment of the Faculty of Law at the Hebrew University" The History of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (fifth volume, Yfaat Weiss and Uzi Rebhun, eds., The Hebrew University Magnes Press, 2023) (in Hebrew).
Book review
Yehudit Dori Deston, Book review: Nir Kedar, Law and Identity in Israel: A Century of Debate (2019), (33 Studies in Contemporary Jewry, Oxford University Press, 2022).
Photo Credit: Daniel Hanoch