Ari Joskowicz

Eugene Greener, Jr. Chair in Jewish Studies
Professor of Jewish Studies, History, and European Studies Chair, Department of Jewish Studies

Ari Joskowicz is a historian of modern Jewish, Romani, and European history with a special interest in the relations between minority groups from the Enlightenment until today. His most recent book, Rain of Ash: Roma, Jews, and the Holocaust (Princeton University Press, 2023) offers a new history of the genocide of Roma and Jews during World War II and their related quest for historical justice. The book charts the evolving postwar relationship between Roma and Jews over the course of nearly a century. During the Nazi era, Jews and Roma shared little in common besides their simultaneous persecution. Yet the decades of entwined struggles for recognition have deepened Romani-Jewish relations, which now center not only on commemorations of past genocides but also on contemporary debates about antiracism and Zionism. The book won the George L. Mosse Prize of the American Historical Association and the Ernst Fraenkel Prize in Holocaust history, and was a finalist for a National Jewish Book Award and the Jordan Schnitzer Award of the Association of Jewish Studies.

Joskowicz has worked on various themes in Jewish cultural history – from Jewish anti-Catholicism, Enlightenment economic thought about Jews, to the marketing of Jewish mysticism. His current research focuses on broader histories of Nazi genocide, the challenges of writing Romani history, and the economic history of memory.

At Vanderbilt, Professor Joskowicz teaches courses in modern European and Jewish history, including The Holocaust; Antisemitism: A History; The Idea of Europe; Religion and Politics in Modern Europe; Perspectives on Modern Jewish History; Conspiracy Theories and Rumors; Europe from the Margins (graduate). You can find a short video about his teaching here on Vimeo.