David Fishman

BIOGRAPHY

BA, Yeshiva University; AM and PhD, Harvard University

David E. Fishman is a professor of Jewish History at The Jewish Theological Seminary, teaching courses in modern Jewish history. Dr. Fishman also serves as director of Project Judaica, JTS’s program in Ukraine, which is based at the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. He directs its Jewish Archival Survey, which publishes guides to Jewish archival materials in Ukraine.

Dr. Fishman is the author of numerous books and articles on the history and culture of East European Jewry. His The Book Smugglers: Partisans, Poets, and the Race to Save Jewish Treasures from the Nazis, (ForeEdge, 2017) was winner of the National Jewish Book Award in the Holocaust category and has been translated into ten languages. Previous monographs include Russia’s First Modern Jews (New York University Press, 1996) and The Rise of Modern Yiddish Culture (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005). Dr. Fishman is the coeditor (with Burton Visotzky) of From Mesopotamia to Modernity: Ten Introductions to Jewish History and Literature (Westview Press, 1999), and edited two volumes of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik’s Yiddish writings, Droshes un ksovim (Ktav, 2009 and Orthodox Union, 2021). In addition to his scholarly activity, Dr. Fishman compiles and edits the bi-weekly The War in Ukraine: Jewish News on Substack.

For 15 years (1988–2003), Dr. Fishman was editor in chief of YIVO-Bleter, the Yiddish-language scholarly journal of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. He is a member of the Academic Committee of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and serves on the editorial board of the journal Polin. 

Grants, Fellowships, and Awards

• Kronhill Visiting Scholar, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, Spring 2015
• Member, Academic Committee, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2014–present
• Fulbright Fellowship, Vilnius Yiddish Institute, Lithuania, 2007–2008
• Lady Davis Visiting Professorship, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, May–June 2004 and May–June 2005

PUBLICATIONS

• The Book Smugglers: Partisans, Poets, and the Race to Save Jewish Treasures from the Nazis. Lebanon, NH: ForeEdge, 2017.
• Nazi-Looted Jewish Archives in Moscow: A Guide to Jewish Historical and Cultural Collections in the Russian State Military Archive. Coeditor with Mark Kupovetsky and Vladimir Kuzelenkov. Scranton, PA: University of Scranton Press, in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and The Jewish Theological Seminary, 2010. 
• Embers Plucked from the Fire: The Rescue of Jewish Culture Treasure in Vilna, YIVO, 2009.
• Yiddish Drashos and Writings (in Yiddish) by Joseph B. Soloveitchik. Editor. Ktav, 2009.
• Yiddish Language and Culture in the Soviet Union (in Russian). Coeditor. Moscow: RGGU Press, 2009.
• The Rise of Modern Yiddish Culture. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005.
• From Mesopotamia to Modernity: Ten Introductions to Jewish History and Literature. Coeditor with Burton Visotzky. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999.
• Russia’s First Modern Jews: The Jews of Shklov. Editor. New York: New York University Press, 1996. 

Lectures

• “Vilna: The Jerusalem of Lithuania”
• “The Shtetl: Myth and Reality”
• “Yiddish Words and Jewish Values”
• “Hasidism and Its Opponents”
• “The Rescue of Jewish Cultural Treasures During the Holocaust”
• “The Rabbis and the Russian Revolution”
• “Religion and Secularism in Early Zionism”
• “The East European Roots of Modern Israel”
• “The Jews and the Soviet Union: A Love-Hate Relationship”
• “Contemporary Russian Jews: A Community on Three Continents”
• Available to speak about Jewish history, Jewish religious and political movements, Yiddish culture, and Jews and Slavs

Learn with Dr. Fishman at JTS Torah Online