Open Search form

Jeffrey Herf

Apply for a Blog

Sep 3, 2025, 7:24 AM

Responding to the Genocide Accusation An Interview with O Globo in Brazil

O Globo, a major newspaper in Brazil interviewed me about the genocide accusation. The text was published on Sunday. Here is the longer English language version done via email. Jeffrey Herf September 1, 2025 O Globo Newspaper in Rio de Janerio, Brazil conducted...

Jul 22, 2025, 6:34 PM

The genocide accusation and Hamas’s disappearing responsibility

Blaming Israel alone for Gaza’s suffering erases Hamas’s role, distorts genocide’s meaning, and echoes old anti-Jewish tropes

Jul 2, 2025, 10:30 PM

The paradox of the Netanyahu-Trump strike on Iran

US President Donald Trump (left) welcomes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House in Washington on April 7, 2025. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP)

Two right-wing leaders did what liberal predecessors would not – use force to confront a genocidal theocracy

Mar 2, 2025, 11:24 PM

What Timothy Snyder gets right on Ukraine and wrong on Israel

Snyder said protests were suppressed. Were they? (Screengrab from The Times of Israel)

Comments the historian made to ToI's David Horovitz on antisemitism and events on US campuses are neither convincing nor accurate

Aug 18, 2024, 8:58 PM

Holocaust Museums and October 7

The following are excerpts from a talk delivered to the annual meeting of the American Association of Holocaust Organizations, June 9, 2024, YIVO Institute in New York City. When the first Holocaust museums, and courses on the history of the...

Nov 2, 2023, 11:12 AM

A Historical Perspective on Hamas’ Ideology of Mass Murder

The following essay was first published in Quillette on October 10th, and reprinted in German translation in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on October 20th. The text of "The Ideology of Mass Murder: Hamas and the origins of the October...

Oct 30, 2022, 12:00 AM

Robert Satloff on Israel’s Moment

My Israel's Moment: International Support for and Opposition to Establishing the Jewish State, 1945-1949 was published in April by Cambridge University Press. The most recent of reviews is by Robert Satloff, Executive Director of the Washington Institute for Near East...

Mar 27, 2022, 12:03 AM

Israel’s Moment: A History of International Support and Opposition, 1945-1949

I am pleased to announce that Cambridge University Press has published my book Israel’s Moment: International Support for and Opposition to Establishing the Jewish State, 1945-1949. It is a book that I hope will of particular interest to readers...

Mar 25, 2022, 5:53 PM

‘Ukraine, the Jews and Israel in 1948: Vasyl Tarasenko at the United Nations’

When Vladimir Putin spreads the lie that Ukraine is run by Nazis and thus needs to be de-Nazified in a “special military operation,” he stands in a long tradition of Soviet era propaganda that hurled identical accusations at domestic...

Mar 11, 2022, 6:47 PM

Putin’s Continuities: From ‘Israelis as Nazis’ to ‘Denazifying’ Ukraine

Vladimir Putin’s aggression against Ukraine, and Ukraine’s resistance has confirmed some old assumptions, shattered prevalent illusions, and led to a remarkable response by the democracies. It also offers yet another example of the disastrous consequences of antisemitism that emerged...

Load more

About Me

Jeffrey Herf is Distinguished University Professor, Emeritus in the Department of History at the University of Maryland, College Park, USA. He has published extensively on modern German and European history, and its intersection with the Middle East. His recent publications include Three Faces of Antisemitism: Right, Left, and Islamist (Routledge, 2024), and “Free Palestine Terrorism,” The Free Press, (June 1, 2025).