Omer Bartov: A Voice in Genocide Studies
Omer Bartov, an Israeli-American historian, is a leading scholar in the field of Holocaust and genocide studies. He currently serves as the Dean’s Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown University, a position he has held since 2000.
Born in Israel in 1954, Bartov was educated at Tel Aviv University and St. Antony’s College, Oxford. His early academic work focused on the German army in World War II. In books such as “The Eastern Front, 1941-1945” and “Hitler’s Army,” he challenged the idea of a “clean” Wehrmacht, arguing that the German military was deeply indoctrinated by Nazi ideology and played a key role in the Holocaust.
Later, Bartov’s research expanded to the connections between total war and genocide, explored in works like “Murder in Our Midst” and “Mirrors of Destruction.” He has also written about the portrayal of antisemitic stereotypes in film in his book, “The ‘Jew’ in Cinema.”
In more recent years, his focus has shifted to the history of interethnic relations in the borderlands of Eastern Europe. This research is informed by his own family history, as his mother’s family was from Buczacz, a town now in Ukraine. His 2018 book, “Anatomy of a Genocide: The Life and Death of a Town Called Buczacz,” is a microhistory of this town, examining how a community of Poles, Ukrainians, and Jews moved from coexistence to genocidal violence. The book won the National Jewish Book Award.
Bartov has also been a prominent voice in public discourse. He has recently gained attention for his assertion, articulated in a July 2025 New York Times essay and other forums, that Israel’s actions in Gaza can be characterized as genocide. This position has been both supported by other genocide scholars and disputed by those who disagree with applying the term to the conflict. His analysis points to what he describes as an “expressed intent” to make Gaza uninhabitable, citing official Israeli rhetoric and large-scale destruction. This stance is notable given his background, including his service in the Israeli military.
