This compilation of scholarship by internationally known academicians in the fields of Jewish and Holocaust history is dedicated to the memory of Saul S. Friedman, who served as professor of Jewish history at Youngstown State University in Youngstown, Ohio and was one of the architects of Holocaust and Genocide education in the United States.
In 1969, Friedman received his PhD in history from Ohio State University, and that year, he began what would become a forty year tenure as a professor in the history department at Youngstown State. In those forty years, he served his university and community with distinction. He was an enormously popular teacher and prodigious scholar, publishing twelve books, an astonishing feat for any scholar. In the late 1980s, he turned to documentary film-making, and five of these productions, including one on French Holocaust survivor Robert Clary, won regional Emmy Awards.
Friedman was a tireless advocate on behalf of the Jewish community as well, and a leader in the Zionist Organization of America. He served as a trustee for the Lillian Schermer Charitable Foundation and was instrumental in the dedication of a Holocaust memorial at the Youngstown Jewish Community Center. Over his extraordinary career, he received six distinguished professorships and the Ohio Humanities Council's Richard Bjornson Lifetime Achievement Award for Service to the Humanities. The culmination of his work came in 2000 when he received an endowment from the Clayman Family of Youngstown to establish a Jewish Studies program at YSU.
Twelve scholars from across the globe have participated in this project in recognition of Friedman's importance to Jewish and Holocaust Studies. They cover the expanse of Jewish history from ancient to modern, with a particular emphasis on the Holocaust. Robert D. Miller (Catholic University of America) and Rafael Frankel (Haifa University) write about ancient Israel, while Edward Alexander (University of Washington, Seattle), Zev Garber (Los Angeles Valley College), and Monty Penkower (Machon Lander Graduate School of Jewish Studies) address issues related to modern Jewish history. Presenting new areas of research in Holocaust Studies are Jonathan Friedman (West Chester University), Rafael Medoff (The David Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies), Helene Sinnreich (Youngstown State University), Dennis Klein (Kean University), Steven Jacobs (University of Alabama), Gershon Greenberg (American University), and Rochelle L. Millen (Wittenberg University).
It is our intention that this volume serve both as a memorial to Dr. Friedman and a synthesis of new research. Countless generations will be able to study Friedman's groundbreaking research on the Holocaust, begun in the 1970s when there were only a handful of other scholars in the field. There are now legions of former students who are educators who will make sure that that history is taught. Our hope with this volume is to add to that already prodigious body of work.