(MAHWAH, NJ) - David Fishman, professor of history at The Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York and director of the Project Judaica, Moscow, will speak at Ramapo College of New Jersey on April 26, 7 p.m. at the Trustees Pavilion (PAV1) under the auspices of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies of Ramapo College.

This lecture will examine a unique chapter in spiritual resistance during the Holocaust in which a dedicated group of Jewish intellectuals, including the noted Yiddish poet Abraham Sutzkever, hid Jewish cultural treasures from the Germans and rescued them from destruction, eventually smuggling them out of Soviet Lithuania to the West after the war.

David E. Fishman is professor of Jewish History at The Jewish Theological Seminary, teaching courses in modern Jewish history. He also serves as director of Project Judaica, a Jewish-studies program based in Moscow that is sponsored jointly by JTS and Russian State University for the Humanities.

Fishman is the author of numerous books and articles on the history and culture of East European Jewry. His books include "Russia's First Modern Jews" (New York University Press) and "The Rise of Modern Yiddish Culture" (Pittsburgh University Press). Dr. Fishman is the coeditor (with Burton Visotzky) of "From Mesopotamia to Modernity: Ten Introductions to Jewish History and Literature" (Westview Press, 1999), which also appeared in a revised Russian edition called "Ot Abrama do sovremenosti" (Russian State University Press, 2002).

A native New Yorker, Fishman received his bachelor's degree from Yeshiva University and his master's degree and doctorate from Harvard University. He has taught at Brandeis University, Barllan University, Russian State University in Moscow, and Yeshiva University's Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies.

The presentation is free and open to the public.

Source: Ramapo College of New Jersey