Robert Wistrich, considered the world’s leading historian on anti-Semitism, died in Rome late Tuesday from a heart attack. He was 70 years old.
He was scheduled to address the Italian Senate on increasing anti–Semitism in Europe.
Wistrich was professor of Jewish history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and headed the university’s Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism.
He was born in the former Soviet Union and moved with his parents back to their native Poland and later to France.
Wistrich grew up in England and studied in Israel in 1969 and 1970. He earned his doctorate degree at the University of London in 1974 and then directed research at the Institute of Contemporary History and the Wiener Library.
He was given tenure at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1982 and won an award of his Study of Anti-Semitism at Hebrew University. His book “The Jews of Vienna in the Age of Franz Joseph” received the Austrian State Prize in History, and his “Anti-Semitism: The Longest Hatred ” won the Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Literary Prize in Britain.
Wistrich later wrote “The Longest Hatred” — a three-hour British-American TV documentary mini-series.