Rafael Medoff

Rafael Medoff is the director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies. Medoff received his PhD from Yeshiva University in 1991. In 2001 he was Visiting Scholar in Jewish Studies at the State University of New York at Purchase. He has served on the editorial boards of American Jewish History, Southern Jewish History, Shofar and Menorah Review. He is a member of the Academic Council of the American Jewish Historical Society, and his essays and reviews have appeared in many scholarly journals.cite book |author=Medoff, Rafael |title=Baksheesh Diplomacy: Secret Negotiations Between American Jewish Leaders and Arab Officials on the Eve of World War II |publisher=Lexington Books |location=Lexington, Mass |year=2001 |pages=191|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=h5roiR9CyuUC&pg=RA1-PA191&vq=author&dq=inauthor:Rafael+inauthor:Medoff&lr=&as_brr=0&output=html&source=gbs_search_s&cad=5&sig=mrGAbSQLSNxVP_KcdO--QzufAYI |isbn=0-7391-0204-4 |oclc= |doi= |accessdate=] He has made a significant contribution to the history of US-Israel relations by examining American Jewish attitudes towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Palestinian Arabs. [ [http://www.wymaninstitute.org/about/ David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies: Welcome ] ]

In "The Deafening Silence", Medoff argues that had American Jewish leaders been more forceful in presenting the case for rescue of European Jews to the Roosevelt administration, they could have moved the administration to act. In Deborah Lipstadt's review of Holocaust literature, she engages Medoff's argument, but concludes that "There is nothing on record to indicate that their outspoken support would have changed the mind of restrictionist legislators." [ America and the Holocaust, by Deborah E. Lipstadt Modern Judaism, Vol. 10, No. 3, Review of Developments in Modern Jewish Studies, Part 1 (Oct., 1990), pp. 283-296 ]

Lawrence Davidson of West Chester University cites Medoff's assertion in "Zionism and the Arabs: An American Jewish Dilemma", 1898-1948, that Zionists did not see the Palestinian Arabs as "a distinct national group with national rights-largely because the Palestinian Arabs themselves did not claim the status of a specific national grouping," to argue against Zionism on the grounds that "no one ruled against self- determination in other parts of Greater Syria where the same views prevailed." [ The past as Prelude: Zionism and the Betrayal of American Democratic Principles, 1917-48, Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 31, No. 3, (Spring, 2002), pp. 21-35 ]

Books

* "Blowing the Whistle on Genocide: Josiah E. DuBois, Jr and the Struggle for an American Response to the Holocaust" (forthcoming)
* "A Race Against Death: Peter Bergson, America, and the Holocaust", with David S. Wyman (The New Press, 2002) [cite news |title=When American Jewry failed its brethren |url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-77434189.html |work=Jerusalem Post |date=2003-08-08 |accessdate=2008-04-29 ]
* "Zionism and the Arabs: An American Jewish Dilemma", 1898-1948, 1997, Greenwood Publishing Group [cite news |title=The Politics of Survival |url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-4628077.html |work=Jerusalem Post |date=1997-11-28 |accessdate=2008-04-29 ]
* "Baksheesh Diplomacy: Secret Negotiations Between American Jewish Leaders and Arab Officials on the Eve of World War II", 2001, Lexington Books [cite news |title= Baksheesh Diplomacy. |url=http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-5823790_ITM |work=Middle East Quarterly |date=2001-06-22 |accessdate=2008-04-29 ]
* "Militant Zionism in America: The Rise and Impact of the Jabotinsky Movement", University of Alabama Press, 2002 [cite news |title=Medoff, Rafael Militant Zionism in America: the Rise and Impact of the Jabotinsky Movement in the United States, 1926-1948. |url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-96620051.html |work=History: Review of New Books |date=2002-09-22 |accessdate=2008-04-29 ]
* "The Deafening Silence: American Jewish Leaders and the Holocaust" (New York: Shapolsky Publishers, 1987)

Publications

* "Recent Trends in the Historiography of Zionism: A Review Essay", Judaism, Vol. 15, No. 1 (Feb., 1995), pp. 95-101

References