The Role of Jews in the Struggle for Democracy

About the Project 

Defending Human Rights Worldwide: The Postwar Challenges and Achievements of American Jews (1945–1993)

Researcher: Dr. Françoise Simcha Ouzan

Drawing on testimonies, archival material, previous scholarship, personal interviews, and correspondence, this research aims to explore the social impact of Jews in the field of human rights, in the aftermath of World War II.

New material found by Dr. Ouzan during her research trip to New York and Washington led her to extend the scope of the research to the year 2001, instead of 1993, which coincided with the creation of UN Watch by Morris Abram and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.  The new end date (the year 2001) saw the first Durban Conference in South Africa, which reignited the “Zionism is racism” accusation, removed the issue of antisemitism from its agenda, and trivialized the genocide of the Jews by the Nazis. This provoked reactions from Holocaust survivors against the outrageous display of racism and hate.

This research emphasizes the challenges encountered by a segment of American Jewry and includes Shoah survivors and veterans of World War II who left a mark on the U.S. civil rights movement and who fought for the value of human rights. More broadly, this study also discusses the humanitarian action of men and women who championed the cause of the vulnerable in the framework of Jewish organizations and local community associations. 

Jewish Participation in Argentine Democracy Building

Researcher: Dr. Adrian Krupnik 

The Center, in partnership with the Minerva Center for Human Rights, offered a joint post-doctoral fellowship to encourage scholarship on the topic “The Role of Jews in the Struggle for Democracy, Human Rights, Civil Equality, and Transitional Justice”. Dr. Adrian Krupnik was selected to receive this fellowship for the 2023–2024 academic year and has been conducting research based on archival materials, testimonies, and in-depth interviews that examine the struggle of Argentine Jews for democracy since the 1960s.

Forthcoming Publications:

•    Fighting on Many Fronts: Jews and Human Rights during the Cold War. In preparation.

•    “Jacobo Kovadloff and the AJC in Buenos Aires at the Beginning of the Military Rule”. In preparation.

•    “Communists, Zionists and Peronists Disputing Jewish Identity in Times of Political Violence, Argentina 1973–1976”. In preparation.