UNM Anthropology to present historian Omer Bartov on the war in Gaza

The University of New Mexico Department of Anthropology will host historian Omer Bartov, who will present Speaking of Genocide: The Holocaust, Israel-Palestine, and the War in Gazasince October 7 on Monday, Sept. 30. The presentation will be at 7 p.m. in Anthropology Room 163. The event is free and open to students, faculty, administrators, regents, and the public.

Bartov is a historian of the Holocaust and is considered one of the world's leading authorities on genocide. He is the Samuel Pisar Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown University. Educated at Tel Aviv University and St. Antony's College, Oxford, he has written widely on war crimes, interethnic relations, and genocide.

Recent books include Anatomy of a Genocide: The Life and Death of a Town Called Buczacz, which won the National Jewish Book Award; Tales from the Borderlands: Making and Unmaking the Galician Past, and Genocide, The Holocaust and Israel-Palestine: First-Person History in Times of Crisis (2023).

Bartov's essays and commentaries on the current crisis in the Middle East have been featured in many national and international outlets, including the New York Times.

In a recent interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now, Bartov said, "I think we should be proud that in American universities students actually are demonstrating in favor of those who are being oppressed and now who are being killed. And they're doing it, first of all, because it's the right thing to do. They're doing it also because they are American citizens. It is American taxpayers' money that is paying for the arms that the United States is shipping in vast amounts to Israel so as to destroy Gaza. And they have every right - and, in fact, they have a duty - to protest against these kinds of policies."

This event is co-sponsored by the UNM Office of the Provost, the UNM Department of History, the UNM International Studies Institute, Jewish Voice for Peace, and the UNM Department of Anthropology.