Gavriel Rosenfeld, PhD, Appointed Pres. of Center for Jewish History

Gavriel Rosenfeld, PhD, professor of history and director of the undergraduate program in Judaic Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences at Fairfield University since 2000, was named the new president of the Center for Jewish History in New York City late last month.

Dr. Rosenfeld is a prolific writer for academic and public audiences and is skilled in bringing scholarly insight to bear on topics of present-day importance, from the politics of Holocaust memory in the United States to the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine. Dr. Rosenfeld holds a BA in history and Judaic Studies from Brown University and earned his PhD from UCLA.

A specialist in the history of Nazi Germany, Holocaust studies, memory studies, and counterfactual history, Dr. Rosenfeld is the author or editor of eight books, including The Fourth Reich: The Specter of Nazism Since World War II (Cambridge University Press, 2019) and Building After Auschwitz: Jewish Architecture and the Memory of the Holocaust (Yale University Press, 2011), which was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award in the category of visual arts.

As president of the Center for Jewish History, Dr. Rosenfeld will be the Center’s voice on issues of Jewish historical relevance in the contemporary world. “I am very excited to help the Center for Jewish History move forward on its ambitious agenda,” Dr. Rosenfeld commented. “By supporting high-level Jewish historical research and organizing public events on topics of current interest, I hope to enhance the Center’s stellar reputation as one of the country's preeminent Jewish academic and cultural institutions.”

The Center for Jewish History illuminates the Jewish past for audiences today and preserves it for the future as a multilingual, interdisciplinary space for learning and public engagement. The Center is home to five in-house Partner organizations — the American Jewish Historical Society, American Sephardi Federation, Leo Baeck Institute, Yeshiva University Museum, and YIVO Institute for Jewish Research — whose combined holdings make up the world’s largest collection of Jewish history and culture held outside Israel. The Center opens these collections to the public and activates the stories they hold through archive and library services, fellowships, public programs, and free exhibits.

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Fairfield University is the modern Jesuit University, rooted in one of the world’s oldest intellectual and spiritual traditions. More than 5,000 undergraduate and graduate students from 36 states, 47 foreign countries, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico are enrolled in the University’s five schools. In the spirit of rigorous and sympathetic inquiry into all dimensions of human experience, Fairfield welcomes students from diverse backgrounds to share ideas and engage in open conversations. The University is located in the heart of a region where the future takes shape, on a stunning campus on the Connecticut coast just an hour from New York City.