Read About the Panelist for Antisemitism in 2022
Dr. Michael Berenbaum directs the Sigi Ziering Institute, which explores the ethical and religious implications of the Holocaust. The Institute is located at American Jewish University in California, where he is also a professor of Jewish studies. Additionally, he is a writer, lecturer and teacher consulting in the conceptual development of museums and films.
In 2015, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum honored Dr. Berenbaum with its National Leadership Award for his decades of service and contributions to Holocaust memory and education. From 1988 to 1993, Dr. Berenbaum oversaw the creation of the Museum, serving as project director, and later was director of the US Holocaust Research Institute at the Museum, now the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies. Dr. Berenbaum served as deputy director of the President’s Commission on the Holocaust, which led to creating the Museum. Starting in 1997, he served for three years as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, now the USC Shoah Foundation.
Dr. Berenbaum has authored or edited 22 books, scores of scholarly articles and hundreds of journalistic pieces. His books include The World Must Know: The History of the Holocaust as Told in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; After Tragedy and Triumph: Modern Jewish Thought and the American Experience; Not Your Father’s Antisemitism: Hatred of the Jews in the 21st Century and Mosaic of Victims: Non-Jews Persecuted and Murdered by the Nazis. In film, Dr. Berenbaum co-produced One Survivor Remembers: The Gerda Weissmann Klein Story, which received an Emmy Award in 1995 and an Academy Award in 1996. He has been a historical consultant on numerous other films and documentaries.
A graduate of Queens College and Florida State University, Dr. Berenbaum also attended The Hebrew University, the Jewish Theological Seminary and Boston University. He has won numerous fellowships and was given a Doctor of Divinity (honoris causa) from Nazareth College and a Doctor of Humane Letter (honoris causa) from Denison University.
