Avinoam Patt

Education

PhD, New York University

BA, Emory University

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Avinoam J. Patt, PhD worked as the Miles Lerman Applied Research Scholar for Jewish Life and Culture at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM). He received his PhD in Modern European History and Hebrew and Judaic Studies from New York University. His first book, Finding Home and Homeland: Jewish Youth and Zionism in the Aftermath of the Holocaust (published by Wayne State University Press, May 2009) examines the appeal of Zionism for young survivors in Europe in the aftermath of the Holocaust and their role in the creation of the state of Israel.

Patt is also the co-editor (with Michael Berkowitz) of a collected volume on Jewish Displaced Persons, titled We are Here: New Approaches to the Study of Jewish Displaced Persons in Postwar Germany (Wayne State University Press, February 2010). He is a contributor to several projects at the USHMM and is a co-author of the source volume, entitled Jewish Responses to Persecution, 1938-1940 (USHMM/Alta Mira Press, September 2011). He has also published numerous articles, book chapters, and encyclopedia articles on various topics related to Jewish life and culture before, during, and after the Holocaust and is director of the In Our Words Interview Project with the children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors.

Most recently, he is co-editor of an anthology of contemporary American Jewish fiction entitled The New Diaspora: The Changing Landscape of American Jewish Fiction. In Celebration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Edward Lewis Wallant Award for American Jewish Fiction with Mark Shechner and Victoria Aarons, published by Wayne State University Press in 2015 and finalist for the National Jewish Book Award, Anthologies). Patt teaches courses on Modern Jewish History, American Jewish History, the Holocaust, the History of Zionism and the State of Israel, Jewish film, and Modern Jewish Literature among others. He is currently co-editing a new volume on The Joint Distribution Committee: 100 Years of Jewish History (Wayne State University Press, 2017) and writing a new book on the early wartime and postwar memory of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (under contract with Wayne State University Press). Patt also recently served as one of five inaugural JTS Fellows, a new initiative to expand and diversify The Jewish Theological Seminary’s adult learning opportunities.