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Conference Speakers

 
Name Title and Affiliation Biography

Dr. Rebecca Boehling

 Director, David M. Rubenstein National Institute for Holocaust Documentation, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC (USA) Rebecca Boehling has led since 2019 the Museum’s efforts to collect. preserve and make accessible the world’s most comprehensive Collection of Record of the Holocaust. She is emerita professor of history at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC). She is the author of A Question of Priorities: Democratic Reform and Economic Recovery in Postwar Germany (Berghahn Books, 1996) and numerous articles on Germany under U.S. occupation, and co-author of Life and Loss in the Shadow of the Holocaust (Cambridge University Press, 2011). From 2013-2015 she directed the International Tracing Service (ITS, now Arolsen Archives) in Germany. Her current research, which she pursued as a fellow at the Museum and at the American Academy in Berlin, is on denazification as transitional justice.

Dr. Suzanne Brown-Fleming

Director, International Academic Programs, Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC (USA)

Suzanne Brown-Fleming joined the Museum in 2001 and oversees its International Academic Programs, which ensure that the field of Holocaust studies remains vital and vibrant around the world. Her work has been featured in the Catholic News Service, Catholic News Agency, and The Catholic Virginian. She has appeared on CNN, EWTN Global Catholic Television Network, and in several documentaries, including Holy Silence (2020). Dr. Brown-Fleming leads the Museum's Vatican Archives Initiative. Her current research project, "Il Papa Tedesco (The German Pope): Eugenio Pacelli and Germany, 1917–1958", is a study of Pope Pius XII’s relationship to Germany and its bishops, leaders, and people during the Weimar era, the Third Reich, and the Holocaust.

Dr. Annalisa Capristo

 Librarian, Center for American Studies, Rome (Italy)

Annalisa Capristo is librarian at the Center for American Studies in Rome, and teaches Contemporary Jewish history at the BA offered by the Union of Italian Jewish Communities (UCEI). She is a fellow of the Centre for the History of Racism and Anti-Racism in Modern Italy, Genoa. Her research focuses on anti-Semitic and racial laws in Fascist Italy, on which she has published several books and papers. Her publications include the books L’espulsione degli ebrei dalle accademie italiane (Turin: S. Zamorani, 2002) and (coauthored with Giorgio Fabre) Il registro: La cacciata degli ebrei dallo Stato italiano nei protocolli della Corte dei Conti 1938-1943 (Bologna: il Mulino, 2018). 
Dr. Luca Carboni Archivist, Vatican Apostolic Archives (Vatican)

Luca Carboni is an archivist of the Vatican Apostolic Archive since 1998 and Professor of Archival Science at the Vatican School of Paleography, Diplomatics and Archives. He coordinates the training internships of graduates of the Vatican School in relation to the archival arrangement and inventorying of the fonds of the archives of the Pontifical Representations. 

Dr. Rebecca Carter-Chand

 Director, Programs on Ethics, Religion, and the Holocaust, Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC (USA) Rebecca Carter-Chand is Director of the Programs on Ethics, Religion, and the Holocaust at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. She is the co-editor with Kevin Spicer of, Religion, Ethnonationalism, and Antisemitism in the Era of the Two World Wars (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2022). She is currently completing a book manuscript on the Salvation Army in Nazi Germany. Her research interests include Christian minority groups in Nazi Germany and Christian rescue and aid to Jews during the Holocaust. Rebecca serves on the executive board of the Council of Centers on Jewish-Christian Relations and the editorial boards of Contemporary Church History Quarterly and the journal Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte. 
Dr. Lucia Ceci Assistant Professor of Modern History, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome (Italy)

Lucia Ceci, PhD, is Full Professor of Modern History, Head of the Department of History, Humanities and Society, University of Rome Tor Vergata. Her research interests mainly concern the relationships between Church, politics, and religious dimension (19th and 20th centuries), Italian colonialism, Catholic Anti-Semitism (20th century), Religion and Mafia (20th century). She authored books and articles in Italy, USA, Germany, France, Spain, Russia. Her most recent volumes include: La fede armata. Cattolici e violenza politica nel Novecento (Il Mulino 2022), L’interesse superiore. Il Vaticano e l’Italia di Mussolini (Laterza 20192, Prize Friuli Storia, English translation by Brill), Il papa non deve parlare. Chiesa, fascismo e guerra d’Etiopia (Laterza 2010, Prize Desiderio Pirovano). 
Dr. Giovanni Coco  Archivist,  Vatican Apostolic Archives (Vatican)

Giovanni Coco is a staff member of Vatican Apostolic Archives (2002). Since 2002 he has been working on documents related to the pontificate of Pius XI (1922-1939) and Pius XII (1939-1958). During the latter years he has been inventorying two archival fonds: the Carte Pio XII (Pius XII Papers), a collection of personal papers of Pope Pius XII, and the Segreteria di Stato, Carte del Sostituto (Secretariat of State, Substitute Papers), a collection of confidential documents from 1937 to 1954, sealed by Mgr. Giovanni Battista Montini, the future Pope Paul VI. 

He has published historical essays about Pius XI’s pontificate. The latest are a 1,425-page monograph about Pius XI, Pacelli and Fascist Regime, Il Labirinto romano (The Roman Labyrinth, Città del Vaticano 2019) and an essay about the Christmas Radio Broadcasting of Pius XII in 1942 (2020).
 
Dr. Philip A. Cunningham Director, Institute for Jewish-Catholic Relations of Saint Joseph’s University, Philadelphia (USA) Philip A. Cunningham is Professor of Theology/Religious Studies and director of the Institute for Jewish-Catholic Relations of Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, USA. With a background in biblical studies and religious education, he specializes in theologies of the Christian and Jewish, and especially the Catholic-Jewish, relationship. He is the author or editor of over a dozen books, most recently 2022's Maxims for Mutuality: Principles for Catholic Theology, Education, and Preaching about Jews and Judaism (Paulist Press/Stimulus Series) and dozens of articles or book chapters. He has served as president and honorary president of the International Council of Christians and Jews. He is also the webmaster of the Internet resource Dialogika of the Council of Centers on Jewish-Christian Relations
Dr. Tommaso Dell’Era Senior Lecturer, Tuscia University of Viterbo (Italy) Tommaso Dell’Era is Senior Lecturer in Political Philosophy at Tuscia University of Viterbo. He earned a PhD in History of Political Thought, History of Political Institutions and Political Philosophy (Rome 2003), and was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Holocaust Studies at the Yad Vashem International Institute for Holocaust Research, Jerusalem (2005-2006). He has published articles on Italian Fascist Racism and Anti-Semitism, Political Language, Ideologies and Propaganda, Russian Liberalism and Italian Catholic political thought, and child abuse within the Catholic Church.
Sr. Celia Deutsch, NDS Sisters of Notre Dame de Sion; Barnard College/Columbia, NY (USA)

Sr. Celia Deutsch is a Sister of Our Lady of Sion. She is Research Scholar in the Religion Department at Barnard College/Columbia University (NY, USA), and teaches periodically at Holy Trinity College (Harare, Zimbabwe). Dr. Deutsch writes in the fields of early Judaism and early Christianity, as well as on Jewish-Christian relations. She is currently writing a commentary on the gospel of Matthew from a feminist perspective in the context of Jewish sources for the Wisdom Commentary Series. She is a member of the Society of Biblical Literature, the Catholic Biblical Association, the Theology Committee of the International Council of Christians and Jews, and the Council of Centers on Jewish-Christian Relations. Dr. Deutsch serves on the Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs Commission of the Diocese of Brooklyn. 
Dr. Massimo Faggioli Professor of Historical Theology, Villanova University, PA (USA) Massimo Faggioli is Professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at  Villanova University (Philadelphia). His most recent books are The Liminal Papacy of Pope Francis. Moving Toward Global Catholicity (Orbis Books, 2020) and Joe Biden and Catholicism  in the United States (Bayard, 2021, also in Italian and French translations). Together with  Catherine Clifford he is the co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Vatican II (Oxford University  Press, 2023). He was founding co-chair of the study group “Vatican II Studies” for the American  Academy of Religion between 2012 and 2017. He is a columnist for Commonweal and La Croix International.
Dr. Massimo Gargiulo 

Pro-Director, Centre Cardinal Bea for Judaic Studies, Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome (Italy)




 		 Massimo Gargiulo, PhD, is currently a professor and Director at the Cardinal Bea Centre for Judaic Studies at the Gregorian Pontifical University in Rome. His areas of interest are Hellenistic Judaism, Jewish-Christian relations in antiquity and late antiquity, Spinoza's grammatical theory. Among his publications the most recent is Il profumo di Abramo, a book on Jewish and Christian exegesis on Abraham in a series which he directs with Marco Cassuto Morselli.
Dr. Umberto Gentiloni Silveri  Full Professor in Contemporary History, Sapienza University of Rome (Italy) Umberto Gentiloni Silveri is Full Professor in Contemporary History in the Arts and Humanities Faculty at the ‘Sapienza’ University of Rome and editor-in-chief of Sapienza University Press. He was Visiting researcher/ Professor at the University of California, Berkeley; University of Connecticut; University of Beijing; New York University; and University of Barcelona, among others.  He holds a PhD in History of the movements and political parties (University of Urbino). His recent publications include: L’Italia sospesa. La crisi degli anni Settanta vista da Washington, Turin, Einaudi, 2009; Contro scettici e disfattisti. Gli anni di Ciampi 1992-2006, Rome-Bari, Laterza, 2013; Bombardare Auschwitz. Perché si poteva fare, perché non è stato fatto, Milan, Mondadori, 2015; Il giorno più lungo della Repubblica. Un paese ferito nelle lettere a casa Moro durante il sequestro, Milan, Mondadori, 2016. He edited the publication of the diaries of Ambassador Manlio Brosio, Diari di Washington 1955-1961, Diari di Parigi 1961-1964 e Diari NATO 1964-1972, Bologna, Il Mulino 2008, 2009 and 2011. He writes for the daily newspaper la Repubblica.
Dr. Amedeo Osti Guerrazzi Researcher, Università degli studi di Padova (Italy) Amedeo Osti Guerrazzi is a researcher at the University of Padua. He has worked for the German Historical Institute in Rome and the Shoah Museum Foundation in Rome. The focus of his research is fascist violence and the persecution of Jews in Italy. His latest publication in English on the subject is Germans, Italians, and Jews: the police forces of occupied Italy, 1943-1945, in "Search and Research", Yad Vashem, 2020.
Dr. Johan Ickx Director, Historical Archive of the Section for Relations with States (Vatican)

 
Dr. Willie James Jennings Associate Professor of Systematic Theology and Africana Studies, Yale University (USA)

Willie James Jennings is currently Associate Professor of Systematic Theology and Africana Studies at Yale University Divinity School. Dr. Jennings is the author of The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race published by Yale University Press. It is one of the most important books in theology written in the last 25 years and is now a standard text read in colleges, seminaries, and universities.  Jennings is also the recipient of the 2015 Grawemeyer Award in Religion for his groundbreaking work on race and Christianity. His recently authored commentary on the Book of Acts won the Reference Book of the Year Award, from The Academy of Parish Clergy. He is also the author of After Whiteness: An Education in Belonging, which is the inaugural book in the much anticipated book series, Theological Education between the Times, and has already become an instant classic, winning the 2020 book of the year award from Publisher’s Weekly, and being selected as a finalist for the 2021 American Academy of Religion Book of the Year in the Constructive- Reflective Studies category. And now Jennings is hard at work on a book on the doctrine of creation, tentatively entitled, “Reframing the World.” 
Dr. David Kertzer Research Professor, Brown University, Providence, RI (USA) David I. Kertzer is Research Professor at Brown University (USA) where from 2006 to 2011 he served as Provost. His book, The Pope and Mussolini, was awarded the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Biography and has been published in eleven languages. Among his many other books, The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara was a finalist for the 1997 National Book Award for Nonfiction and has been published in eighteen foreign editions. He co-founded and served for many years as co-editor of the Journal of Modern Italian Studies. In 2005 he was elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His 2022 book, The Pope at War, based on research in Vatican, Italian, German, French, British, and American archives, tells the story of Pius XII's relations with Mussolini and Hitler during the Second World War. Editions have appeared in the USA, Italy, Germany, and Britain.
The Honorable Deborah Lipstadt US Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism and Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies, Emory University (USA)

 
Dr. Grazia Loparco FMA Pontifical Faculty of Educational Sciences "Auxilium" (Italy)

Grazia Loparco, Daughter of Mary Help of Christians (FMA), has a doctorate in Ecclesiastical History (PUG) and in Literature. She is professor of Church History at the Pontifical Faculty of Educational Sciences “Auxilium” in Rome; historical consultor at the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints; member of the Steering Committee of Donne Chiesa Mondo, monthly of L’Osservatore Romano. Her field of research concerns mainly religious women in society and in the Church in the contemporary age, and Jews hidden in religious institutes during the Nazi-Fascist occupation.

Her publications include: Le Figlie di Maria Ausiliatrice nella società italiana (1900-1922). Percorsi e problemi di ricerca, Roma, LAS 2002; Gli Ebrei negli istituti religiosi a Roma (1943-1944). Dall’arrivo alla partenza, in «Rivista di Storia della Chiesa in Italia» 58 (2004), 107-210; L’assistenza prestata dalle religiose di Roma agli ebrei durante la Seconda guerra mondiale, in Luigi MEZZADRI - Maurizio TAGLIAFERRI (edd.), Le donne nella Chiesa e in Italia, Cinisello Balsamo 2007, 245-285; Ebrei e molti altri nascosti negli Istituti religiosi di Roma, in Giorgio VECCHIO (a cura di), Le suore e la Resistenza, Milano, Ambrosianeum 2010, 281-374; La protezione degli ebrei nelle case religiose italiane (1943-1945). Mappa, reti di salvataggio, nomi, in FONDAZIONE «EMANUELA ZANCAN» (ed.), Per carità e per giustizia, Padova 2011, 274-295; Religiosi e accoglienza degli ebrei durante la seconda guerra mondiale: documenti e silenzi degli archivi, in «Archiva Ecclesiae» 56-58 (2013-2015), 225-255; (ed. con Paola Cuccioli), Le Figlie di Maria Ausiliatrice in Italia (1872-2022). Case e opere, Teramo 2023, 2 vol. 

Rabbi David Maayan 

 Maureen And Douglas Cohn Visiting Chair In Jewish Thought and Assistant Director, Center for Catholic-Jewish Studies, Saint Leo University, FL (USA) Rabbi David Maayan is Maureen and Douglas Cohn Chair in Jewish Thought and assistant director of the Center for Catholic-Jewish Studies at Saint Leo University, and a doctoral candidate in comparative theology at Boston College. An Orthodox Rabbi, Maayan has spent his life in teaching both Jewish and general audiences about Judaism and other religions and philosophies. He is particularly focused on Jewish mysticism and Hasidism, in comparison with Christian theology and in the context of modernity. He has authored essays on comparative theology and Hasidic thought, and recently the chapter "Self-Creation through Texts: Kalonymus Kalman Shapira's Incarnational Theology," in Hasidism, Suffering, and Renewal. A forthcoming essay, "Friendship, Alterity, and Weakness," explores the possibilities and challenges of interreligious friendship between Christians and Jews.

Dr. Claire Maligot

 

Claire Maligot is a PhD student and currently a high school teacher in France. She has written her dissertation on relations between Catholics and non-Christians, from 1947 to 1965, from theology to diplomacy and activism. It has uncovered another history of Vatican II, based on its “non-Christian” sources.

Rabbi Noam Marans 

 Director of Interreligious and Intergroup Relations, American Jewish Committee Rabbi Noam Marans is American Jewish Committee (AJC)’s Director of Interreligious and Intergroup Relations, heading the organization’s worldwide interfaith outreach. He served as chair of the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations (IJCIC), the Vatican’s recognized dialogue partner representing world Jewry. He was the lead speaker offering Jewish perspectives when Pope Francis convened the world’s religions in support of the environment and education. He successfully engaged the controversial Oberammergau Passion Play, toward elimination of its historically anti-Jewish elements. He is a graduate of Columbia University and the Jewish Theological Seminary, which recognized him with an honorary doctorate for decades of service to the Jewish people. Earlier this year, Seton Hall University honored Rabbi Marans with its Sister Rose Thering Award for outstanding interreligious leadership.
Dr. Dominik Markl, SJ Professor of Hebrew Bible / Old Testament Studies at the University of Innsbruck (Austria) and Pontifical Biblical Institute, Rome (Italy)

Dominik Markl, SJ, is Professor of Hebrew Bible / Old Testament Studies at the University of Innsbruck (since 2023) and at the Pontifical Biblical Institute, where he has been teaching since 2013. He also held guest professorships at Georgetown University (Washington, DC), Loyola School of Theology (Berkeley, CA), Hekima College (Nairobi, Kenia), and Heythrop College (University of London). Markl researches in the areas of Pentateuch criticism, history of religion, especially the emergence of monotheism, the history of political ideas and discourses of mass violence. He is Old Testament editor of the journal Biblica. 
Dr. Alberto Melloni Unesco Chairholder of the Chair on Religious Pluralism & Peace and FSCIRE, University of Bologna (Italy)

 
Rabbi Dr. David Meyer Professor, Cardinal Bea Centre for Judaic Studies, Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome (Italy) Rabbi David Meyer was born in Paris. He is an ordained Rabbi from the Leo Baeck College, rabbinic  seminary in London. After finishing his degree in Applied Mathematics at the University of Paris IX, he obtained a Master’s degree from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris and later a Master’s degree in Hebrew and Jewish Studies with Distinction. He holds a PhD in Religious Studies from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL), Belgium.  Rabbi Meyer is currently a professor at the Cardinal Bea Centre for Judaic Studies at the Gregorian Pontifical University in Rome where he teaches Classical Rabbinic Literature and Contemporary Jewish Thought.
Prof. Dr. Dr. Dr. Jan Mikrut Full professor, Faculty of Church History and Cultural Heritage and Faculty of Theology, Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome (Italy)

Jan Mikrut was born in Poland in 1960. He is a priest of the Archdiocese of Vienna (Austria) and an Austrian citizen.

He obtained his academic degrees at the Universities of Vienna, Krakow and Rome, which include a Doctorate in Theology, a Doctorate in Church History, and a Doctorate in Humanities.

He is director of the publishing series “History of the Church in Central and Eastern Europe.”
 
Dr. Matteo Luigi Napolitano Professor of History of International History, Diplomacy and International Relations, Universita' degli Studi del Molise (Italy) Matteo Luigi Napolitano was awarded the title of ‘Ambassador for Peace’ by the Universal Peace Federation. In 2009 he was at Yad Vashem to discuss the change of the caption on Pius XII at the Holocaust Memorial. Among his essays "Mussolini e la Conferenza di Locarno (1996)", "Pio XII tra Guerra e Pace", "Pacelli,  Roncalli e i battesimi della Shoah" (2005), "Pío XII y los hebreos en la Segunda Guerra Mundial" (2010),  "The Vatican Files" (2012), "I Giusti di Budapest" (2013), "Tra Ginevra e Gerusalemme" (2018), "Vaticano  e Gran Bretagna nella crisi delle Falkland", "Modus non moriendi. Pagine di storia diplomatica russo vaticana" (2023), "Si vis pacem para pacem. Agostino Casaroli e la prima fase della CSCE" (2023).
Dr. Eliot Nidam Coordinator, International Research and Academic Assistant to the Head of the International Institute for Holocaust Research, 
Yad Vashem (Israel)		 Eliot Nidam is the Coordinator of International Research and Academic Assistant to the Head of the International Institute for Holocaust Research, Yad Vashem (Israel). His PhD was on Roman Catholic Religious Congregations in France and the Hiding of Jews During the Holocaust. His current research deals with the return of Jewish children in the aftermath of the Holocaust and issues of guardianship.
Dr. Paul Oberholzer SJ Extraordinary Professor, Faculty of History and Cultural Heritage of the Church, Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome (Italy)

Paul Oberholzer, SJ, is professor of Medieval History at the Pontifical Gregorian University. His main areas of research are: early medieval rural churches; the beginnings of the Society of Jesus and its administration; memory studies.

His recent publications include: Diego Laínez (1512-1565) and his Generalate. Jesuit with Jewish Roots, Close Confidant of Ignatius of Loyola, Preeminent Theologian of the Council of Trent, (Bibliotheca Instituti Historici Societatis Iesu 76), Roma 2015; Hugo Rahners Abendlandkonzept in seiner erinnerungskulturellen Relevanz, in: Abendlanddiskurse und Erinnerungsräume Europas im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, Franziska; Metzger, Heinz Sproll (hg.), Wien, Köln, Böhlau Verlag 2022, pp. 99-125; Die Casus Sancti Galli von Ekkehart IV. – ein letztes Zeugnis der Reichskirche vor der Gregorianischen Reform, in Vorbereitung für die Studien und Mitteilungen zur Geschichte des Benediktinerordens. Die Eigenkirchen in den frühmittelalterlichen Urkunden des Klosters St. Gallen, in Vorbereitung für den Tagungsband des congress of medieval canon law, St. Louis 2022.
 
Dr. Iael Orvieto Director of the International Institute for Holocaust Research, 
Yad Vashem (Israel)		 Iael Orvieto is the Director of the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem (Israel). Her PhD was awarded by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2003. Her thesis was “Between Discrimination and Persecution in the Reactions of Italian Jewry to an Ever Increasing Crisis, 1938-1945.”
His Eminence Cardinal Pietro Parolin OMRI Secretary of State, The Holy See

 



 
Dr. Raffaella Perin Associate Professor, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Italy) Raffaella Perin is Associate Professor at the Catholic University of Sacred Heart of Milan. A specialist in the history of the contemporary Catholic Church, her studies focus on the attitude of the Holy See and the Italian Church toward Jews and Protestants during the interwar period; the forms of anti-Semitism and Catholic anti-Protestantism in the twentieth century; Catholic modernism and anti-modernism under the pontificate of Pius X; the use of Vatican Radio and the media by the Holy See as means of propaganda; the diplomacy and politics of the Vatican during the Second World War. She is the author of La Radio del papa. Propaganda e diplomazia nella seconda guerra mondiale, il Mulino, Bologna, 2017; Une diplomatie désarmée dans la Seconde Guerre mondiale : un bilan historiographique, in «Monde(s)», 2/2022, pp. 35 – 56; Il “cinema ideale” secondo Pio XII: preparazione e ricezione di due discorsi del 1955, in Papi e media. Redazione e ricezione dei documenti di Pio XI e Pio XII su cinema, radio e tv, a cura di D.E. Viganò, il Mulino, Bologna, 2023, pp. 125-165.
Dr. Liliana Picciotto Historian, Jewish Contemporary Documentation Center Foundation, Milan (Italy)

Liliana Picciotto is the historian of the Center for Contemporary Jewish Documentation (CDEC) based in Milan. She is the author of the foundational work on the Holocaust in Italy: The Book of Memory. The Jews deported from Italy 1943-1945 (Mursia, Milan 1991, 2002). She has authored many other books and scientific articles. Her research, published under the title Salvarsi: The Jews of Italy escaped from the Holocaust 1943-1945 (Einaudi, Turin 2017), was recognized as the best contemporary history book of the year by the prestigious Italian Society for the Study of Contemporary History (SISSCO).

Picciotto is one of the directors of the review La Rassegna Mensile di Israel. She is a member of the scientific committee of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers for the creation of the Italian pavilion of the Auschwitz museum. She is co-author of the documentary films directed by Ruggero Gabbai: Memoria, The Jews of Fossoli, The Last Journey. Rhodes-Auschwitz, La razzia-Rome 16 October 1943, that received international prizes and awards. Picciotto’s current research focuses on the participation of Jews in the Italian armed Resistance against Nazism and Fascism.

Dr. Ion Popa

 Gerda Henkel Stiftung Scholar and Honorary Research Fellow, Centre for Jewish Studies, University of Manchester (England) Ion Popa is a Gerda Henkel Stiftung scholar and an honorary research fellow at the Centre  for Jewish Studies, University of Manchester. He is the author of The Romanian Orthodox  Church and the Holocaust (Indiana University Press, 2017), which was co-winner of the 2018  Yad Vashem International Book Prize for Holocaust Research. His second book, tentatively titled  A Few Good Men: The Vatican, The Catholic Church in Romania and the Holocaust is in the  process of publication. Popa is a specialist on Modern European History, with a focus on the  Holocaust, religion and politics, and Jewish-Christian relations.
Dr. Robert Regoli Director, Church History Department, Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome (Italy)

 
Dr. Gabriele Rigano Professore associato di storia contemporanea, Università degli studi Roma Tre (Italy) Gabriele Rigano is Associate Professor in Contemporary History at Università degli studi Roma Tre.  He is associate editor of the scientific journal "Storia e politica. Annali della Fondazione Ugo La Malfa"  (A-band journal, academic field 14/B2) and co-director of the editorial series "Quaderni. Annali della Fondazione Ugo La Malfa." He has published various essays on religious and political history of the twentieth century, including topics on Jewish history, the relationship between Judaism and Catholicism, anti-Semitism, fascism, history of intellectuals, the republican movement, and history of Sardinia. In recent years he has studied the history of the papacy and the position taken by the Catholic Church in the First and Second World Wars.
Rabbi David Sandmel Immediate Past Chair, International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations

 
Dr. Michele Sarfatti Historian, Jewish Contemporary Documentation Center Foundation (CDEC), Milan (Italy)  Michele Sarfatti works on Jews and anti-Semitic persecution in Modern Italy.  He is co-editor of the e-journal Quest. Issues in Contemporary Jewish History. Questioni di Storia Ebraica Contemporanea. He has been Director of Centro di Documentazione Ebraica Contemporanea CDEC, Milan; and member of “Commissione Governativa di indagine sui beni degli ebrei in Italia nel periodo delle persecuzioni 1938–1945”. His main work is Gli ebrei nell’Italia fascista. Vicende, identità, persecuzione, def. ed. (Turin: Einaudi 2018); engl. transl. The Jews in Mussolini’s Italy: from Equality to Persecution (Madison: 2006); germ. transl. Die Juden im faschistischen Italien. Geschichte, Identität, Verfolgung (Berlin: 2014). His latest book is I confini di una persecuzione. Il fascismo e gli ebrei fuori d’Italia (1938-1943) (Rome: Viella 2023). See also www.michelesarfatti.it
Dr. Gerald J. Steinacher James A. Rawley Professor of History, University of Nebraska-Lincoln (USA) Gerald J. Steinacher is the James A. Rawley Professor of History at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and has been a guest professor at the Universities of Harvard, Munich, Lucerne, and Vienna. Prof. Steinacher has held many distinguished research fellowships, including at the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem, the Institute for Contemporary History Munich, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. He has published 18 books, and over 100 articles and book chapters on the Nazi regime and Italian Fascism. His most recent books include Nazis on the Run: How Hitler's Henchmen Fled Justice (winner of a 2011 National Jewish Book Award) and Humanitarians at War: The Red Cross in the Shadow of the Holocaust, both published with Oxford University Press.
Dr. Monika Stolarczyk-Bilardie FWO PhD Fellow, KU Leuven (Belgium) Monika Stolarczyk-Bilardie holds MA in German Philology (2008, University of Warsaw), Dutch Philology (2009, University of Warsaw) and History (2017, NIOD/University of Amsterdam). She is currently affiliated with KU Leuven as FWO Flanders PhD Fellow. Her research focuses on the attitudes of the Polish Catholic Church and the Vatican in face of the Holocaust. The first research results of this project have been presented at international conferences in 2022 and 2023. The article entitled "The Vatican and the Holocaust: Inside Information from Poland, 1939-1942" will be published in the fall of 2023 in the Revue d'Histoire de la Shoah.
Dr. Matthew Tapie Associate Professor of Theology and Director of the Center for Catholic-Jewish Studies, Saint Leo University, Florida (USA) Matthew Tapie is Associate Professor of Theology and Director of the Center for Catholic-Jewish Studies at Saint Leo University, Florida. From 2012-2014, Tapie was a Visiting Professor of Theology at The Catholic University of America (CUA) and was appointed a research fellow at CUA's Institute for Interreligious Study and Dialogue. Tapie is the author of numerous scholarly articles and books, including Aquinas on Israel and the Church: The Question of Supersessionism in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas (2014), and The Challenge of Catholic-Jewish Theological Dialogue (forthcoming, CUA Press). His most recent book is entitled, Spiritual Womb: The Mortara Case and St. Thomas Aquinas’s Defense of Jewish Parental Rights (forthcoming, CUA Press). In 2016, Tapie was appointed to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Committee on Ethics, Religion, and the Holocaust. He is also a member of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' dialogue with Modern Orthodox Judaism.
Dr. Nina Valbousquet Researcher (Italy)

Nina Valbousquet is co-organizer of the Ecole Française de Rome 5-year research program and yearly seminar on the Pius XII archives. She has been a research fellow at the Ecole from 2019 to 2023 working on the Vatican archives. During her tenure she has been the scientific curator of the exhibition on “The Churches and the Holocaust” at the Shoah Memorial in Paris (June 2022-February 2023) and editor of the catalog.

For 2023-2024 she has been awarded two research fellowships: Rothschild Foundation Hanadiv Fellowship in European Jewish Studies at the University of Manchester, and Yad Vashem Fellowship in Holocaust Research in Jerusalem. 

She is the editor of the special issue of the Revue d’Histoire de la Shoah on the Vatican and the Holocaust which will be available online on October 15. Her upcoming book on the Vatican and the Holocaust will be published at La Découverte (Paris) in March 2024.

Her first book was published at CNRS editions (Paris) in 2020: Catholique et antisémite : Le réseau de Mgr Benigni – Rome, Europe, Etats-Unis, 1918-1934. 
She has been a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Jewish History, NYU, and Fordham University in New York City, and at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC.  
Her articles appear in Revue d’Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine (2022), Diasporas. Circulations, migrations, histoire (2022), American Jewish History (2021), Modern Italy (2018), Journal of Modern Italian Studies (2019), Archives Juives (2018), Passato e Presente (2017).
 
Dr. Robert Ventresca Interim Academic Dean and Professor of History, King's University College at Western University in London, Ontario (Canada) Robert Ventresca is Interim Academic Dean and Professor of History at King's University College at Western University in London, Ontario, Canada. He has a doctorate in modern European history from the University of Toronto in 2000.  His research, teaching and public scholarship interrogate Catholicism’s role and responses to Nazism-Fascism in the era of the Holocaust. Ventresca is a General Editor of the Cambridge History of the Papacy (forthcoming) and is currently writing a new book for Cambridge University.
Father Etienne Vetö, ccn Auxiliary Bishop, Reims (France); 
formerly Professor, Faculty of Theology and Director, Cardinal Bea Centre for Judaic Studies, Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome (Italy)

Father Etienne Vetö is a Roman Catholic priest of the Chemin Neuf Community. He teaches Theology and Jewish-Christian Relations at the Faculty of Theology and the Cardinal Bea Centre for Judaic Studies, Pontifical Gregorian University (Rome).

He is a member of the "International Theological Commission" and Consultor of the Vatican "Commission for the Relations with the Jews" (Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity). 

He was ordained Auxiliary Bishop of Reims (France) in September 2023.
Prof. Dr. Hubert Wolf Professor of Medieval and Modern Church History Department of Medieval and Modern Church History, University Münster (Germany) Hubert Wolf, Dr. theol. Dr. h.c., is Professor of Medieval and Modern Church History at the University of Münster and was, among others, awarded the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize, the Communicator Prize, the Gutenberg Prize and the Sigmund Freud Prize. He is a proven expert on the Vatican archives, particularly focussing on book censorship by the Roman Inquisition and Congregation of the Index as well as on the Catholic Church’s stance on National Socialism. He and his team are highly experienced in Digital Humanities, having, so far, presented online editions of the nuncial reports Eugenio Pacelli wrote from Germany (1917-1929) and of the diaries of Michael Cardinal Faulhaber. They are currently preparing an online edition of the petitions sent to the Catholic Church by Jewish people from all over the world entitled #askingthepopeforhelp.