Name Manfred Gerstenfeld | Role Author | |
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Books The Abuse of Holocaust Memory: Distortions and Responses | ||
Manfred gerstenfeld on the alarming trend to demonize israel and the jews
Manfred Gerstenfeld (Hebrew: מנפרד גרסטנפלד; born 1937 in Vienna) is an Austrian-born Israeli author and former Chairman of the Steering Committee of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. He founded and directed the Center's Post-Holocaust and Anti-Semitism program.
Contents
- Manfred gerstenfeld on the alarming trend to demonize israel and the jews
- Is anti semitism a factor dr manfred gerstenfeld
- Biography
- Books
- Articles
- Book reviews by Manfred Gerstenfeld
- References
Is anti semitism a factor dr manfred gerstenfeld
Biography
Manfred Gerstenfeld was born in Vienna, grew up in Amsterdam where he obtained a master's degree in organic chemistry at Amsterdam University. He also studied economics at what is nowadays Erasmus university in Rotterdam. He has a high school teaching degree in Jewish studies from the Dutch Jewish seminary. In 1999 he obtained a Ph.D. in environmental studies at Amsterdam University. In 1964 he moved to Paris where he became Europe's first financial analyst specializing in the pharmaceutical industry. He moved to Israel in 1968. There he became the managing director of an economic consultancy firm partly owned by Israel's then-largest bank Bank leumi. He was an academic reserve officer in the Israeli Army (IDF). Gerstenfeld was a board member of one of Israel's largest companies, the Israel Corporation and several other Israeli companies.
Ha'aretz editor Anshel Pfeffer wrote in 2013 that "Manfred Gerstenfeld is without doubt the greatest authority on anti-Semitism today." Isi Leibler, the former chairman of the Governing Board of the World Jewish Congress, wrote in the Jerusalem Post in 2015: "Gerstenfeld would today...be considered the most qualified analyst of contemporary anti-Semitism with a focus on anti-Israelism." Gerstenfeld was an editor of The Jewish Political Studies Review, co-publisher of the Jerusalem Letter/Viewpoints, Post-Holocaust and Anti-Semitism and Changing Jewish Communities and a member of the council of the Foundation for Research of Dutch Jewry, of which he was formerly the vice-chairman. He was chairman of the Board of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, a Jerusalem based think tank, from 2000 until 2012, where he headed the Institute for Jewish Global Affairs. He is the 2012 recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Journal for the Study of Antisemitism. In 2015, he received the International Leadership Award from the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
Gerstenfeld is controversial in Norway, after claiming that "Norway is a nation of anti-semites" and that "Norwegians are a barbaric and unintelligent people", and accusing King Harald, Crown Prince Haakon, former Foreign Minister and now Labour leader Jonas Gahr Støre and former Prime Minister and now NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg of being "anti-semites". Gerstenfeld has published books about his views on Norway and written several newspaper articles that have been controversial. Norway's largest newspaper and main newspaper of record, the conservative daily Aftenposten, has described Gerstenfeld in an editorial as a far-right extremist and fanatic. Imre Hercz, a Norwegian doctor and well-known member of Norway's Jewish community, has condemned Gerstenfeld's "propaganda war against Norway". According to expert on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict Hilde Henriksen Waage, Gerstenfeld is a central figure in a smear campaign against Norway on the Israeli far-right. Odd-Bjørn Fure, Norway's main anti-semitism expert and founding director of the Center for Studies of the Holocaust and Religious Minorities, has said that Gerstenfeld "is not worth arguing against. I prefer to deal with serious people. We do not take this person seriously."