What IS a concentration camp? Where did the concept come from? How does the history of concentration camps inform our understanding of them (past and present)?
These are just some of the questions we covered in this episode with @andreapitzer.bsky.social.
thhp.buzzsprout.com/2291653/epis...
![While the DEI justification has generated headlines, Senderovich said, “I think it’s also somewhat misleading to get hung up on what they typed into ChatGPT.”
The NEH’s final grant cancellation list, he noted, included many projects that had not been flagged as DEI. One such cancellation noted by the plaintiffs’ attorneys — which DOGE canceled over McDonald’s objections — was “a grant to advance the National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education at Seton Hill [sic] University.” Such actions, Senderovich says, show that the agency’s goal was “to destroy the existing projects that supported public humanities, and to wipe the slate clean for a revamped NEH more in line with the MAGA agenda.”](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:zss2u674nnqqrkhrxvh6f42h/bafkreihm455phb7tkdb4uzih7x52yq4lyvdy77mjy2eypmjtofdxmvfigq)
While the DEI justification has generated headlines, Senderovich said, “I think it’s also somewhat misleading to get hung up on what they typed into ChatGPT.” The NEH’s final grant cancellation list, he noted, included many projects that had not been flagged as DEI. One such cancellation noted by the plaintiffs’ attorneys — which DOGE canceled over McDonald’s objections — was “a grant to advance the National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education at Seton Hill [sic] University.” Such actions, Senderovich says, show that the agency’s goal was “to destroy the existing projects that supported public humanities, and to wipe the slate clean for a revamped NEH more in line with the MAGA agenda.”
Here are my thoughts on the absolutely insane but also not terribly surprising story that DOGE fed summaries of National Endowment for the Humanities projects into ChatGPT when needing to cut those grants quickly to wipe the slate clean for Trump’s authoritarian project. www.jta.org/2026/03/09/u...
So long!
“Feb. 24 marks the fourth anniversary of the full-scale invasion. Four years is a particularly significant milestone for people who, like me, grew up in the Soviet Union, in the eternal shadow of World War II, because four years was the duration of the fight against the Nazis.”
A published copy of “In the Shadow of the Holocaust: Short Fiction by Jewish Writers from the Soviet Union” edited and translated by Sasha Senderovich and Harriet Murav.
Pub day!!! Our book is now out.
X is hiring a creative writing specialist at $40 an hour to make Grok better at writing and a true LOL at the qualifications
Apropos of nothing, truly floored to see that four years after the publication of my book, Holocaust and Genocide Studies has
published a review! academic.oup.com/hgs/advance-...
I'm so excited to see this book is coming out. I read drafts of the chapter on Romania. It's a great piece of scholarship.
"Twitter was good for books: Can other sites do some of the same useful work?"
A must-read essay by @derekkrissoff.bsky.social on what a fractured social media environment means for title discoverability and the strength of the book community as a whole.
derekkrissoff.substack.com/p/twitter-wa...
In which I tell @derekkrissoff.bsky.social: “Booksky has its moments but in general social media is now totally decentralized and it’s just harder” -- harder to connect, harder to discover, harder to (gulp) promote.
GREAT piece by Derek, always a shrewd observer in and of the book world.
My latest @jewishbookcouncil.bsky.social review is up. A look at Andrew PorÂwanchÂer’s new biography of Teddy Roosevelt from @princetonupress.bsky.social
www.jewishbookcouncil.org/book/america...
My father was a Nazi hunter, until he was killed in the Lockerbie bombing, when I was four. Now, a man will stand trial for the crime. What does it mean, after nearly forty years, to seek justice for the crimes of history? My new cover story for the Times Magazine: www.nytimes.com/2025/05/20/m...
Today at 2 EST, historians Diana Dumitru, @stefanc-ionescu.bsky.social, Emanuel Grec, and @granttharward.bsky.social will join @ww2tv.bsky.social to talk about Romania’s first war crimes trial, which took place 80 years ago Saturday.
Recording available afterward:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bHp...
As always, it was great to hear @returnstosender.bsky.social’s speak last night about The Zelmenyaners, recently reissued from the @yiddishbookcenter.bsky.social’s White Goat Press (written by Moyshe Kulbak, translated by Hillel Halkin). It includes Sasha’s notes and introduction.
On the bright side, this cookbook from Alissa Timoshkina looks amazing www.penguin.co.uk/books/466737...
Zelenskyy defends his sovereign country and citizens against two tag-teaming bullying extortionists and glorified state-mafia bosses. Don’t accept another narrative. It is what is. Just a shameful US policy - thoughtless and counterproductive and one that is no foreign policy at all.
The war in Ukraine is a war for historical truth. My WSJ essay about how Ukraine’s tragic past — the subject of my new novel No Country for Love — explains its determination not to succumb to Russian rule once again. www.wsj.com/world/europe...
"Appeasement at Munich: World Wars, Past and Possible"
The symmetry between Germany-Czechoslovakia in 1938 and Russia-Ukraine in 2022 is uncanny, and pausing for a moment on the resemblances might help us to take a broader view of today.
snyder.substack.com/p/appeasemen...
A screenshot from the website PuncturedLines.com. A banner with old manuscript and samizdat pages at the top followed by the website content below. The opening post lines read: 2025 Books by Post-Soviet Authors February 11, 2025 ~ Sasha Vasilyuk ~ Edit"2025 Books by Post-Soviet Authors" 2025 is going to be a big year for books written by immigrant authors hailing from the Soviet Union who now call North America home. Since 2021, I’ve kept a running list of books coming out from our community as a way to keep tabs and, frankly, because no one else was doing it. Last year, when my own debut novel came out, there were only 7 books out from our community, a couple of them paperback editions of 2023 novels. This year, however, we have twelve new titles, plus three books–including my own–being released in paperback. A recent record! I imagine the war in Ukraine might have had something to do with this increased output as several of the authors below engage with the war and the resulting refugee crisis.
2025 Books by Post-Soviet Authors -- Thanks to @sashavasilyuk.bsky.social for keeping track of all the upcoming 2025 books by immigrant writers from the former USSR, writing in English and publishing in the US. Take a look -- it's quite a bounty of riches!
Authors include: @shustry.bsky.social,
Every month the Yiddish Book Center puts out a selection featuring various items associated with its collections or other work. I was asked to “handpick” this month’s selections—so here they are. I focused on Soviet Yiddish (and Soviet Jewish) things: www.yiddishbookcenter.org/language-lit...
Can’t wait to read it!
I created a thing! It is definitely missing people - if you are a person who should be on it, pls let me know! go.bsky.app/8HazBeR