The son of Israel Prize-winning author
Hanoch Bartov,[5] Bartov was born in Israel and educated at
Tel Aviv University and
St. Antony's College, Oxford. As a historian, he is most noted for his studies of the German Army in World War II. Bartov has challenged the popular view that the German Army was an apolitical force that had little involvement in war crimes or
crimes against humanity in World War II, arguing that the
Wehrmacht was a deeply Nazi institution that played a key role in the Holocaust in the occupied areas of the Soviet Union. He has also characterized Israel's treatment of Palestinians in the
occupied territories as
apartheid.
Early life and education
Omer Bartov was born in 1954 in
Ein HaHoresh, Israel. His father,
Hanoch Bartov, was an author and journalist whose parents immigrated to
Mandatory Palestine from Poland before Hanoch was born.[6] Bartov's mother immigrated to Mandatory Palestine from
Buchach, Ukraine, in the mid-1930s.[7]
From 1992 to 2000, Bartov taught at
Rutgers University, where he held the Raoul Wallenberg Professorship in Human Rights. At Rutgers, he was also a Senior Fellow at the Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis. Bartov joined the faculty of Brown University in 2000.[8] He was elected a member of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2005.[9]
Political views
In August 2023, Bartov was one of more than 1,500 U.S., Israeli, Jewish and Palestinian academics and public figures who signed an open letter stating that Israel operates "
a regime of apartheid" and calling on U.S. Jewish groups to speak out against the occupation in Palestine.[10][11] He said that
Israel's 37th government had brought "a very radical shift", adding, "I am a historian of the 20th century and don’t make analogies lightly", before recounting how the movement of fringe politics into the mainstream in Europe led to fascism, and emphasizing: "This is the current moment in Israel. It's terrifying to see it happening."[12]
Bartov's claim that Israel's actions in Gaza after the
October 7, 2023, Hamas attack constitute "genocidal intent"[13] has generated significant pushback from other scholars in Jewish studies. Holocaust historians Norman Goda and Jeffrey Herf say that Bartov and several other academics are exploiting their credentials and identities to push their views, despite lack of evidence. They are "Jews and Israelis to boot. Intentionally or not, their credentials provide an imprimatur to those eager to accuse Israel of perpetrating genocide", Goda and Herf wrote in Quillette.[14] The Jewish Studies Zionist Network, an organization of "experts in Jewish studies with a commitment to the peace and welfare of all communities in Israel",[15] contends that "Israel has gone [to great lengths] to avoid harming non-combatants, [and accordingly] it is ludicrous to suggest there is any genocidal intent behind Israel's very targeted mission against Hamas. Israel understands that the Palestinian people are just as much the victims of Hamas's long reign of terror as Jews are."[16] Because of his views and the criticism he has received from his colleagues, the Jewish Studies Zionist Network gave him the 2023 Schmegegge of the Year Award.[17]
Books
The Eastern Front, 1941–1945: German Troops and the Barbarization of Warfare, Palgrave Macmillan, 2001
Historians on the Eastern Front Andreas Hillgruber and Germany's Tragedy, pages 325–345 from Tel Aviver Jahrbuch für deutsche Geschichte, Volume 16, 1987
Hitler's Army: Soldiers, Nazis, and War in the Third Reich, Oxford Paperbacks, 1992
Hitlers Wehrmacht. Soldaten, Fanatismus und die Brutalisierung des Krieges. (German edition)
ISBN3-499-60793-X.
Murder in Our Midst: The Holocaust, Industrial Killing, and Representation, Oxford University Press, 1996[18]
Mirrors of Destruction: War, Genocide, and Modern Identity, Oxford University Press, 2002
Germany's War and the Holocaust: Disputed Histories, Cornell University Press, 2003
The "Jew" in Cinema: From The Golem to Don't Touch My Holocaust, Indiana University Press, 2005