In this conversation with RevDem editor Ferenc Laczó, Ari Joskowicz – author of the new book Rain of Ash: Roma, Jews, and the Holocaust – discusses the ways Jewish and Romani histories have been entangled and what motivated him to write a relational history of the two groups; illuminates why he considers it essential to explore the conditions of knowledge production and how to try to avoid reproducing injustices; shows what it has implied in concrete setting that the stories of persecution of one group of people have been nested within those of another; and reflects on what has truly changed in memory culture and what new dialogues could be pursued in the future.
Ari Joskowicz is a historian of modern Jewish and European history who is especially interested in the interplay between Jewish history and transnational minority politics since the Enlightenment. He is an Associate Professor of Jewish Studies and European Studies and Associate Professor of History at Vanderbilt University. He also acts as the Director of Max Kade Center for European and German Studies at the same university.
Rain of Ash: Roma, Jews, and the Holocaust has been published by Princeton University Press.
In collaboration with Lucie Hunter
