David Cesarani, OBE (PhD, Oxford)

Research Interests

Modern Jewish history and culture in Europe, Britain and North America, especially Jewish immigration and settlement; identity, ethnicity and 'race'; modern German history; genocide.

Professor Cesarani's research interests fall broadly within the field of modern Jewish history and culture, with the accent on the relations between Jews and non-Jews, but touch on many, necessarily allied subjects including ethnicity and 'race', immigration and citizenship, modern German history and genocide.

He has supervised doctoral students working on the history of Theresienstadt and on British-Jewish responses to the 'Final Solution'. He has acted as adviser to doctoral students researching the question of identity within the Anglo-Jewish elite, 1918-1945; the experience of members of the Jewish faith in the British Army during the First World War; the life and work of Eleanor Rathbone, with special reference to her work with refugees; Inter-War second generation Jews in the East End; Race discourse in Britain 1918-62.

His most recent publications include Eichmann. His Life and Crimes (2004) which will be translated into German, Italian, Dutch and Swedish, and The Jews and the Left/ The Left and the Jews (2004) written primarily for Members of Parliament. He is a co-editor of the journal Patterns of Prejudice.

David Cesarani was a member of the British delegation to the International Task Force for Intergovernmental Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research and is currently an advisor to the Home Office on Holocaust Memorial Day as well as other UK and overseas NGOs. He served on the advisory board of the Imperial War Museum's permanent Holocaust exhibition and has made a number of radio documentaries for the BBC and acted as consultant for several historical programmes on television, including The Irving Trial (C4, 2000) and I Met Adolf Eichmann (BBC2, 2001).

Professor Cesarani is currently overseeing two major research externally-funded programmes. The AHRC-funded project on 'Jewish Philanthropy and Social Development in Europe c. 1800-1940: the case of the Rothschilds' employs one full time research fellow and a part-time research coordinator based at The Rothschild Archive in London (partner in the project), as well as three researchers operating in France, Germany and Israel. One outcome of the project is a major database containing a wide range of information about philanthropic projects supported by the Rothschilds and other Jewish doners, including graphics and images. The other is a history of World ORT, the Jewish Relief and vocational training organisation, during the war and post-war years when it helped the rehabilitation of thousands of Holocaust survivors. This project is jointly funded by World ORT along with Conference for Jewish Material Claims against Germany. Cesarani is also supervising an AHRC-funded collaborative doctoral award held with The Jewish Museum to conduct research into the involvement of Jews in the entertainment industry in Britain over the last 150 years. The research will also feed into a exhibition to accompany the reopening of the Jewish Museum in 2009 after a period of major redevleopment.

Media activity

David Cesarani has recently acted as historical consultant to two TV documentaries:

• 'Nuremberg. Goering's' Last Stand', 3BM, August 2006
• 'Auschwitz: the Nazis and the Final Solution', BBC2 January-February 2005

Prizes and awards

In February 2005, David Cesarani was awarded the OBE for services to Holocaust Education and advising the government with regard to the establishemnt of Holocaust Memorial Day. He is currently a Trustee of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust. The US edition of Eichmann: his life and crime, entitled Becoming Eichmann.The life, crimes and trial of a 'desk murderer', won the Jewish Book Council of America National Jewish Book Award in History, 2006.

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