Professor Zvi Gitelman

Professional Background

Professor Zvi Gitelman received a Ph.D. and an M.A. from Columbia University, an A.B., suma cum laude, from Columbia College, and a B.A. from the Jewish Theological Seminary. During his fellowship at the Museum, he was Professor of Political Science and Preston R. Tisch Professor of Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. For his J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Senior Scholar-in-Residence Fellowship, Professor Gitelman conducted research on “East European and Soviet Jewry before and during World War Two.”

Professor Gitelman is the author and editor of several books including A Century of Ambivalence: The Jews in Russia and the Soviet Union, 1881 to the Present (Schocken Books, 1988), Bitter Legacy: Confronting the Holocaust in the Soviet Union (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997) and The Emergence of Modern Jewish Politics in Eastern Europe: Bundism and Zionism in Eastern Europe (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003) among others. He is the author of dozens of scholarly articles and monographs on East European and Soviet Jewry. Professor Gitelman is the recipient of numerous distinguished awards for his scholarly work including the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Katzki Award for Outstanding Historical Writing; the Tronstein Award for Creative Teaching in the Department of Political Science at the University of Michigan; and the Fulbright Lectureship Award. The winner of the Farband Prize in Yiddish Studies and the Felix Warburg and Nehemiah Gitelson Prizes (Jewish Theological Seminary), Professor Gitelman has also been awarded fellowships from the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, The Hebrew University (Jerusalem), the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, and the Rabin Center for Hebrew Studies, among others.

Fellowship Research

While in residence at the Museum, Professor Gitelman gave an evening lecture on “Why They Killed Their Neighbors: The Myth of ‘Judeo-Bolshevism’ and Holocaust-Era Pogroms in Eastern Europe.” He conducted research on Jewish participation in the Soviet military during the Holocaust. He examined how Soviet Jews perceived their own participation in the military during and after the war. He studied Soviet Jewish attitudes toward the Holocaust and how they differed from those of Jews in Israel and the West.

Professor Gitelman was in residence at the Mandel Center from September 1, 2005 to May 31, 2006.