Diversity Champion: Dr. Kirsten Fermaglich
January 26, 2021 - Liz Schondelmayer
After joining the Michigan State University Department of History in 2001, Dr. Kirsten Fermaglich has established herself as an expert on American Jewish history.
Dr. Fermaglich earned her PhD from New York University. While she started her dissertation on the American civil rights movement, her research evolved to focus on Jewish history in the latter half of the 20th century. "I found myself making moral comparisons of bystanders during the American civil rights movement and bystanders during the Holocaust," explained Dr. Fermaglich, "and I realized I was projecting some of my own concerns onto the research."
Since arriving on campus, Dr. Fermaglich has published two acclaimed books centered around Jewish history in the United States. Her first book, American Dreams and Nazi Nightmares, was released in 2006 and focused on how American Jewish academics' research in the 1960s was affected by the memory of the Holocaust. Her newest book, A Rosenberg by Any Other Name, was published in 2018 and explores the practice of Jewish name changing in America during the 20th century.
On top of being a critically acclaimed author, Dr. Fermaglich is also the co-editor of the journal, American Jewish History, and an instructor of multiple undergraduate classes. While her research doesn't focus on the events of the Holocaust, she studies its influence on the American Jewish community.
In honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day, Dr. Fermaglich offered two takeaways she wished everyone would better understand about the Holocaust and its legacy. The first misconception she tackled is the prominent belief that Jewish Americans weren't affected by the genocide. "There seems to be this assumption that Jewish Americans were not impacted by the Holocaust, but that's just not true," explained Dr. Fermaglich. "It had a deep impact of lasting trauma on many Jewish Americans, and shaped their perspectives on many social and political issues."
Dr. Fermaglich also argues against the misconception that it is never appropriate to compare current events to those which took place during the Holocaust. "It is extremely taboo to draw comparisons about modern political issues to the Holocaust, and in many cases, it can be extremely inappropriate and harmful," said Dr. Fermaglich. "However, there are times when comparisons can be reasonably drawn, and in those cases, we should use our understandings of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust to try to prevent political disaster and genocide today."
Lastly, Dr. Fermaglich explains that one way to honor both survivors of the Holocaust and those lost in the Holocaust is to fight misinformation about the genocide - including the surprisingly ubiquitous argument that it never happened. She explains more about this antisemitic rhetoric in the video below.
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