page_title: Rafael Medoff
section_title: Books about the Holocaust
hierarchical_section_title: Rafael Medoff / Publications and media / Books / Books about the Holocaust
caption_attribution_description: English: Dr. Rafael Medoff speaking at Fordham Law School, in New York City, on September 18, 2011
context_page_description: Rafael Medoff is an American professor of Jewish history and the founding director of The David Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, which is based in Washington, D.C. and focuses on issues related to America's response to the Holocaust.
context_section_description: Medoff's textbook, Jewish Americans and Political Participation: A Reference Handbook, published by ABC-CLIO in 2002, was named an "Outstanding Academic Title of 2002" by the American Library Association's Choice Magazine.
  Medoff and David S. Wyman in 2002 coauthored the first scholarly study of the Holocaust rescue activists known as the Bergson Group, A Race Against Death: Peter Bergson, America, and the Holocaust, published by The New Press. In The New Republic, Dr. Michael Oren (today Israel's ambassador to the United States) called A Race Against Death "an important book [by] veteran chroniclers of America's shameful inaction during the Holocaust." The Jerusalem Post hailed it as "a must-read for Jewish leaders the world over, as well as for committed Jews and anyone interested in the response of American Jewry to the Holocaust."  In response to the publication of A Race Against Death, officials of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, in Washington, D.C., announced that they would add materials about the Bergson Group to the museum's permanent exhibit.
  In The Deafening Silence, Medoff argues that had American Jewish leaders been more forceful in presenting the case for rescue of European Jews to the Roosevelt administration, they could have moved the administration to act. In Deborah Lipstadt's review of Holocaust literature, she engages Medoff's argument, but concludes that "There is nothing on record to indicate that their outspoken support would have changed the mind of restrictionist legislators."
  Together with former New York City Mayor Edward I. Koch, Medoff in 2008 coauthored The Koch Papers: My Fight Against Anti-Semitism, published by Palgrave MacMillan. It was named to the New York Post's "Required Reading" list.  The Forward wrote: "The legendary former New York City mayor has never been shy about standing up for his fellow Jews.  The hallmark of Koch's approach to this issue, as his book demonstrates, is a determination to confront bigotry—with steadfastness and an insistent sense of urgency."
  Also in 2008, Purdue University Press published his book Blowing the Whistle on Genocide:  Josiah E. DuBois, Jr. and the Struggle for a U.S. Response to the Holocaust.  The National Jewish Post and Opinion wrote:  "Blowing the Whistle on Genocide brings to life an inspiring but little-known chapter of Holocaust history."
caption: Medoff speaking at the ninth national conference of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, at Fordham Law School in New York City, September 18, 2011
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