Dan Diner acts as Professor Emeritus of Modern History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and as Chair of the Alfred Landecker Foundation and its Governing Council. Formerly he served as Director of the Simon Dubnow Institute for Jewish History and Culture at Leipzig University. Presently he is a Member of The Saxonian Academy of Science. Prof. Diner's research focuses on two main topics: the conceptualization of modern Jewish history and an interpretation of WWII observed from the periphery. He has published widely on 20th-century history, modern Jewish history, Middle Eastern history, and German history, particularly in the period of National Socialism and the Holocaust.

Iris.nachum@mail.huji.ac.il, Personal website

I am a historian of Central Europe in the 19^th and 20^th centuries, with a special interest in compensation and restitution; liberalism and nationalism; ethnic conflict and expulsion. My research and teaching interests are interdisciplinary, covering history, political theory, and law.

Since 2020, I have served as a Senior Lecturer at the History Department and as Deputy Director of the Jacob Robinson Institute for the History of Individual and Collective Rights at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

My recent book is titled Nationalbesitzstand und “Wiedergutmachung”. Zur historischen Semantik sudetendeutscher Kampfbegriffe (National Ownership and “Wiedergutmachung”: Historical Semantics of Sudeten German Combat Terms). It explores the Sudeten German discourse on compensation in interwar Czechoslovakia, which I trace back to the national conflict between ethnic Germans and Czechs in the post-1848 Habsburg monarchy. The monograph appeared in 2021 and is part of the series “Veröffentlichungen des Collegium Carolinum.”

Jeniay@savion.huji.ac.il

I was born in Kyiv, Ukraine, and immigrated to Israel in early 1991. From an early age, I have been interested in the Middle East and Arabic language and culture. After completing my army service, I moved to Jerusalem to pursue undergraduate studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where I earned a bachelor’s degree in history and Middle Eastern Studies, followed in 2012 by a master's degree, also from the Hebrew University.

Since 2008, I have worked in various academic and administrative positions at the Hebrew University, focusing on the administration of collaborative, large-scale research projects. Since 2020, I have been the administrative director of the Jacob Robinson Institute for the History of Individual and Collective Rights, founded by the Alfred Landekcer Foundation.

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).

> Read the article

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).

> Read the article

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).

> Read more

Photo Credit: Daniel Hanoch