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November 18, 2009

Lecture to discuss role of antisemitism in Middle East conflict

Transcript Staff

Professor Robert S. Wistrich, director of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel, will present a free public lecture on "Antisemitism and the Middle East Conflict" at the University of Oklahoma 7:30 p.m. today in the Great Hall of the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History.

Wistrich, who holds the Neuberger Chair for Modern European and Jewish History at Hebrew University, is an internationally acclaimed scholar of antisemitism and of the Holocaust.

"Professor Wistrich's subject is critically important today when radical Islam violently targets the United States, Israel and Jews everywhere," said Stephen H. Norwood, professor of history at OU. "The increasing support for antisemitism on the contemporary campus is truly alarming."

Wistrich is the author and editor of 24 books. His most recent book, "A Lethal Obsession -- Antisemitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad," will be published by Random House in January 2010. Ron Rosenbaum, author of "Explaining Hitler," stated that "A Lethal Obsession" "is likely to become the single most essential treatment of antisemitism for all those who seek to understand it and combat it."

Wistrich's book "Antisemitism: the Longest Hatred" won the H.H. Wingate award in the United Kingdom, and became a major PBS documentary. His "Hitler and the Holocaust" is considered a leading study of the Third Reich.

Wistrich served as chief historical adviser for the BBC documentary on antisemitism in the contemporary Muslim and Arab worlds, "Blaming the Jews."

He was one of six historians appointed by the Vatican to the Catholic-Jewish Historical Commission, charged with examining Pope Pius XII's record during the Holocaust.

The lecture is sponsored by the Department of History in the University of Oklahoma College of Arts and Sciences, with support from the President's Office. For accommodations on the basis of disability, call the Office of Special Events at 325-3784.

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