SICSA is proud to announce the recipients of the Robert Wistrich Award in the Field of Antisemitism and Racism for 2024:
Ms. Nureet Dermar
Ms. Efrat Komisar
Mr. Lukas Meissel
Ms. Lital Spivak
Nureet Dermer holds a Ph.D. from the Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her dissertation, "Between Expulsions: Jews and Christians in Fourteenth Century Northern France," explores the lives of northern French Jews, particularly in Paris, during the turbulent fourteenth century. Her research delves into Jewish-Christian relations, local identities, and the dynamics of exclusion and inclusion, focusing on how Jews and other marginalized groups coped with expulsion. Dermer is expanding her work to examine the paths of expelled French Jewish families outside the French realm, studying their challenges and survival strategies after arriving in new communities. She holds a B.A. in economics and accountancy and was a certified public accountant before transitioning to historical research.
Efrat Komisar is a Ph.D. candidate in the History Department at the Hebrew University, writing her dissertation under the supervision of Prof. Ofer Ashkenazi and Prof. Amos Goldberg. Her research focuses on photographs taken in the Warsaw ghetto by German and Jewish photographers. It offers a detailed examination of some of the most well-known photographs from the ghetto, highlighting the distinct perspectives of the photographers. Her work emphasizes the photographs of Propaganda Company 689, a widely recognized collection. These images, often used in books, exhibitions, and online as documentation, are regarded as reliable sources of information about ghetto life. However, given their original propaganda purpose, any use of these images as evidence of Jewish life must be critically examined. Her research addresses questions central to the use of German propaganda material related to the Holocaust, particularly the extent to which such material can be considered historical documentation and what insights it can provide about Jewish life during the Holocaust.
Lital Spivak's doctoral research centers on the "New Bezalel" (Bezalel Academy of Arts, 1935-1965) during and after World War II and the Holocaust. Her work examines the period following the rise of the Nazi Party to power and how the institution played a role in the rescue of Jews. Correspondence between the "New Bezalel," Jewish organizations, and prospective students from Western and Central Europe reveals efforts to bring Jews to the Land of Israel. After the war, many Holocaust survivors enrolled in the "New Bezalel," with some becoming prominent artists. In 1946, the Bezalel Museum held a groundbreaking exhibition titled "Behind the Bars – Paintings from the Concentration Camps," which exposed Holocaust imagery to the Israeli public for the first time. Minkin's research explores the role of "New Bezalel" in rescuing Jews and its impact on Holocaust memory in Israel. She holds a BA and MA from the Department of Art History at the Hebrew University, where her thesis, supervised by Prof. Gal Ventura, focused on 19th-century French depictions of fortune tellers. Minkin is currently a fellow at the Research Institute for Contemporary Jewry and the Center for Jewish Art.
Lukas Meissel is a historian and post-doctoral research fellow at the Richard Koebner Minerva Center for German History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, supported by a grant from the Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah. His current project, "Photographic Testimonies: An Integrated Visual History of Survival and Resistance," builds on his Ph.D. thesis, which examined SS photography in concentration camps. Meissel holds a BA and MA in history and contemporary history from the University of Vienna and has worked as an archivist in the Jewish Community of Vienna. He has received numerous fellowships and awards in Israel, the USA, Germany, Austria, and France, including the Herbert-Steiner-Anerkennungspreis and the Theodor-Körner-Preis. His research focuses on Holocaust and genocide studies, visual history, US-Israeli-Austrian relations, and antisemitism. He has published articles in international journals and an award-winning monograph on perpetrator photography in Mauthausen, along with edited volumes on Holocaust studies and education.
