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This case study describes how David Cesarani's research on modern Jewish history and the Holocaust has informed Holocaust education in the UK and influenced policy debates around Holocaust memorialisation and post-Holocaust issues domestically and internationally. It illustrates how Cesarani, research professor in History and director of the Holocaust Research Centre (HRC), has engaged with research users through his role as first a Trustee of and more recently Historical Consultant to the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, a consultant to the Holocaust Educational Trust, an adviser to the Foreign Office, and by his contribution of research expertise to television programmes seen in the UK and around the world.
Speaking in 2012, David Cameron declared proudly that the Great War is `a fundamental part of our national consciousness'. But what is acknowledged far less is the role of minority groups in the conflict. Jews, national minorities and colonial troops all fought and died at the front. Tim Grady has helped to push this knowledge to the centre of the public's understanding. His talks, magazine articles, podcasts and consultancy work have raised awareness of the diverse range of voices involved in the First World War, highlighting the impact of other combatants, as well as the involvement of the Jewish community.
The Kindertransport was the movement to rescue 10,000 mainly Jewish children from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia and bring them to the UK in 1938/39. This project focusses on archival research as well as qualitative social research to reassess aspects of the Kindertransport. The aim of this project was to influence public discourse and civil society and to provide new perspectives to stakeholders such as the former Kindertransportees themselves, both in the UK and abroad, the Jewish community and the interested public in general.
The research is being disseminated through public events, the media and publications. The focus of the Kindertransport: New Perspectives project was to revise common assumption and introduce new critical perspectives regarding the commemoration, memorialisation and reconciliation of the Kindertransport to different groups of people.
Research by Michael Berkowitz, François Guesnet and John D. Klier has inspired and informed a wide range of public engagement, including exhibitions, popular television shows (such as Who Do You Think You Are? reaching 5.82 million viewers) and lively conversation on internet-based forums. Their work on Jewish life and culture in continental Europe and Britain has shaped and provided vital content to local, national and international communities numbering in the millions. Through non-academic conferences and lectures, stimulated and contributed to international public debate on little-discussed histories, and provided cultural organisations an opportunity to promote and participate in this debate.
Professor Raphael's research into the theological meaning of women's experience during the Holocaust, the Jewishness of Jewish Art and idol-breaking as a key tool in the criticism of contemporary culture has had religious, cultural, political and educational impact outside the Higher Education academy. Her work has helped three constituencies to make theological or spiritual sense of the Holocaust, to understand the political connections between gender and genocide and to appreciate the theological relationship of modern Jewish art to the tradition. These constituencies are:
i. the general public;
ii. Jews and Christians on ordination training courses where religious art and modern Jewish thought are studied;
iii. Sixth-form pupils studying the problem of evil.
Bangor's research on stereotyping of Jews, Jewishness and Judaism in contemporary global media significantly facilitates understanding on the part of the public, media, religious educators and cultural industries of challenges facing Jewish cultures and communities, thus impacting on civil society, cultural life and public discourse. Bangor's work enhances regional, national and international public awareness of contemporary media's representations of Jewishness and stereotyping. Its presentation of Jewish cultural heritage helps to preserve and conserve it while increasing understanding of social and cultural identity and encouraging social inclusion.
There has been a continuing demand for public lectures to audiences of all ages demonstrating an appetite for understanding the early marginalisation of Jews: Martin Goodman's research on the place of Jews and Judaism in the Roman world from the first century BCE to the fourth century CE has expanded public awareness of the treatment of minorities in imperial systems, the origins of anti-Semitism, the early development of Rabbinic Judaism, and the relationship between Christianity and Judaism in antiquity (which has implications for interfaith relationships in the present day). Goodman's research findings are also sought after on undergraduate teaching courses and have advised a historically-themed television series.
UCL research improved public understanding in Portugal of the important role that Lisbon played in WWII as an `open city' where both sides in the war operated. In particular, it showed and publicised the city's role as an exit point for thousands of refugees (mainly Jewish) trying to escape German-occupied Europe and get to North America or Palestine. This was achieved through a best-selling publication and a photographic exhibition in Lisbon attended by 10-14,000 visitors. Both were widely reviewed as providing important insights supported by research into previously unpublished archives.
Through his research on Nazi Germany and on the causes of the Holocaust Professor Peter Longerich has made a substantial contribution to CULTURE and to PUBLIC DISCOURSE internationally. He addresses globally important and controversial questions, including the relationship between anti-Semitism and the commission of mass murder, and the degree of responsibility born by Germany as a nation for the Holocaust. His work has been debated in high profile media forums, such as Der Spiegel and Die Zeit.
Longerich's research has also led to impacts on both CIVIL SOCIETY and POLICY MAKING in Germany, for example through his appointment as the chair of the Independent Expert Committee on Anti-Semitism, an advisory group established by the German government, and on EDUCATION: in 2011 he was commissioned to help design a public `document centre' focused on the history of National Socialism in Munich.
Professor David Feldman's research has influenced thinking about antisemitism, racism and multiculturalism among a range of organisations and policy makers. Since becoming first director of the Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism in 2010, he has shaped its development by pursuing a distinctive course of public engagement, with partners such as the All Party Parliamentary Group Against Antisemitism, underpinned by the insights of his research over two decades. As a result, he and the Pears Institute are recognised as significant forces shaping public discourse and policy thinking on issues related to antisemitism.