Dovid Katz

Born in the New York City borough of Brooklyn into the Litvak (Lithuanian-Jewish) family of Yiddish and English poet Menke Katz,{{Cite news |last=Shepard |first=Richard F. |date=1991-04-26 |title=Menke Katz, 85, Poet Appreciated For His Lyrical Style |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1991/04/26/obituaries/menke-katz-85-poet-appreciated-for-his-lyrical-style.html |access-date=2023-06-28 |issn=0362-4331}} Dovid Katz attended the Brooklyn day schools Hebrew Institute of Boro Park and East Midwood Jewish Day School, and then Yeshivah of Flatbush High School, where he led a student protest calling for the inclusion of Yiddish in American Hebrew day school curricula, and founded and edited the Yiddish-English student journal "Aleichem Sholem" (1972–1974).{{Cite web |title=Dovid Katz - periodicals edited |url=https://www.dovidkatz.net/dovid/dovid_periodicals.htm#Sholem |access-date=2023-06-28 |website=www.dovidkatz.net}}See Bernard Bard, "Yiddish Rebels Upset Yeshiva," in the New York Post, August 14, 1972, p. 2. He majored in linguistics at Columbia University, where he graduated in 1978, having studied concurrently at New York's Herzliah Yiddish Teachers' Seminary. He relocated to London in 1978 to work on a doctorate (completed in 1982) on the origins of the Semitic component in the Yiddish language at the University of London.{{cn|date=February 2025}}

For eighteen years (1978–1996) he taught Yiddish Studies at Oxford, building the Oxford Programme in Yiddish. His contributions include initiating a new four-week summer course{{Cite web |title=Dovid Katz - Oxford page |url=https://dovidkatz.net/dovid/dovid_oxford.htm#4 |access-date=2023-06-28 |website=dovidkatz.net}} at four levels of language instruction (in 1982), the annual Stencl Lecture (from 1983),{{Cite web |title=Dovid Katz - periodicals edited |url=https://www.dovidkatz.net/dovid/dovid_periodicals.htm#Stencl |access-date=2023-06-28 |website=www.dovidkatz.net}}Katz edited the first six lectures in pamphlet form between 1984 and 1989; see:https://www.dovidkatz.net/dovid/dovid_periodicals.htm {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170817041939/http://dovidkatz.net/dovid/dovid_periodicals.htm |date=2017-08-17 }}; also [https://dovidkatz.net/dovid/dovid_oxford.htm#8 Mementos of the early Stencl Lectures] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170816051824/http://www.dovidkatz.net/dovid/dovid_oxford.htm#8 |date=2017-08-16 }} annual winter symposiums (from 1985);https://dovidkatz.net/dovid/dovid_oxford.htm#5 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170816051824/http://www.dovidkatz.net/dovid/dovid_oxford.htm#5 |date=2017-08-16 }} Winter symposiums University of Oxford BA, MSt and MPhil options (from 1982), and a doctoral program (from 1984), these being concentrated in the university's Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages.Various illustrative documents from the period are posted at: https://www.dovidkatz.net/dovid/dovid_oxford.htm {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170816051824/http://www.dovidkatz.net/dovid/dovid_oxford.htm |date=2017-08-16 }}. Some of his former doctoral students are today professors of Yiddish, at Indiana University (Bloomington) and Düsseldorf among others. He founded the series Winter Studies in Yiddish in English (vol. 1 appeared in 1987),Four volumes appeared of which Katz edited the first two: {{cite book|last=Katz|first=Dovid|title=Origins of the Yiddish Language: Papers from the First Annual Oxford Winter Symposium in Yiddish Language and Literature, 15-17 December 1985|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YzwOAAAAYAAJ|year=1987|publisher=Pergamon Press|isbn=978-0-08-034156-9}} and {{cite book|last=Katz|first=Dovid|title=Dialects of the Yiddish Language: Winter Studies in Yiddish|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NSyLBQAAQBAJ|year=2014|publisher=Elsevier|isbn=978-1-4832-9950-1}}; [https://dovidkatz.net/dovid/dovid_oxford.htm#6 mementos of the project] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170816051824/http://www.dovidkatz.net/dovid/dovid_oxford.htm#6 |date=2017-08-16 }} and Oksforder Yidish (or "Oxford Yiddish"), entirely in Yiddish (vol. 1 appeared in 1990).Three vols. appeared, edited by Katz: 1 (1990) and 2 (1991) in standard format; vol. 3 (1995) is a large 1000 columned folio. The series was launched [https://dovidkatz.net/dovid/Oxford/6/1990%20Aug%2022%20London%20Launch.pdf at the London Press Centre] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304025231/http://dovidkatz.net/dovid/Oxford/6/1990%20Aug%2022%20London%20Launch.pdf |date=2016-03-04 }}. His posts, at the Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies (renamed the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies) were instructor and junior fellow (1978–1982), senior research fellow and director of Yiddish studies (1983–1994). In 1994 he founded the Oxford Institute for Yiddish Studies and served as its research director until 1997.American Jewish Yearbook, 1998, Vol. 98. Ed. David Singer. New York: American Jewish Committee, 1998. {{ISBN|0-87495-113-5}} {{ISBN|978-0874951134}}. p. 245. He was Research Fellow at St. Antony's College Oxford from 1986 to 1997, and a member of the Modern Language Faculty's Graduate Studies Committee from 1984 to 1997.

After an initial trip to his ancestral Lithuania and Belarus in 1990 (during which he negotiated an agreement{{cite news |title=Lithuania and Oxford Are Linked by Yiddish (Published 1991) |work=The New York Times |date=6 April 1991 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230630114920/https://www.nytimes.com/1991/04/06/arts/lithuania-and-oxford-are-linked-by-yiddish.html |archive-date=2023-06-30 |url-status=live |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1991/04/06/arts/lithuania-and-oxford-are-linked-by-yiddish.html |last1=Shepard |first1=Richard F. }} enabling Lithuanian students to enroll in Oxford Jewish studies courses), Katz pioneered the mounting of in-situ post-Holocaust Yiddish dialectological and folkloristic expeditions in Eastern Europe. He focused on the "Lithuanian lands" (Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, etc.) and continues work on his Atlas of Northeastern Yiddish.Around thirty maps have appeared to date on the in-progress web version of the Atlas at: https://www.dovidkatz.net/WebAtlas/AtlasSamples.htm {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170922065155/http://www.dovidkatz.net/WebAtlas/AtlasSamples.htm |date=2017-09-22 }}. He has amassed thousands of hours of recorded interviews with "the last of the Yiddish Mohicans" in these regions but as far as is known has thus far failed to find a permanent home for the materials. In early 2013 he began posting clips from his interviews of Boro Park Yiddish speakers gleaned from his return trips to his native Brooklyn.His earliest collection constituted [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPwSEWFyAp59fq6rpvzJuuLJ_nfGHibz4 a Youtube playlist] on his channel.

His publications on Yiddish language include his "Grammar of the Yiddish Language" (London, 1987) and his book in Yiddish, "Tikney takones. Fragn fun yidisher stilistik" (Oxford, 1993),https://dovidkatz.net/dovid/PDFStylistics/1993.pdf {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171209160011/http://dovidkatz.net/dovid/PDFStylistics/1993.pdf |date=2017-12-09 }} "Tikney takones. Fragn fun yidisher stilistik" both of which aimed to enhance the teaching of Yiddish as a vibrant language both spoken and for new literary and academic works, even if in (and for) small circles. In both works, he advocated a descriptivist stance, rejecting what he considered to be the excessive purism prevalent in the field, particularly in New York. He also (controversially) championed the traditionalist variant of modern Yiddish orthography, and was the author of the "Code of Yiddish Spelling" (Oxford, 1992).https://dovidkatz.net/dovid/PDFStylistics/1992.pdf {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170905162736/http://www.dovidkatz.net/dovid/PDFStylistics/1992.pdf |date=2017-09-05 }} "Code of Yiddish Spelling" He twice founded and directed (one-time only) Yiddish teacher training programs: at Oxford, a one-year program in 1996, and at Vilnius, an intensive course in spring 2005.

For a nonspecialist English readership he wrote a history of the language and its culture, "Words on Fire: The Unfinished Story of Yiddish" (Basic Books 2004, revised edition with added academic apparatus, 2007), which attracted both acclaim and robust criticism, particularly over his predictions of a vernacular future for Yiddish based in Haredi communities, and his contention that modern Hebrew could not replace the European-nuanced vibrancy of Yiddish.Reviews include [https://forward.com/articles/4422/ladies-and-gentlemen-the-once-and-future-yiddish/ Zachary Sholem Berger] in the Forward (Oct 29, 2004), [https://www.nysun.com/arts/persistence-of-yiddish/4232/ Jeremy Dauber] in the New York Sun (Nov 3, 2004), [https://web.archive.org/web/20160309060809/https://business.highbeam.com/5729/article-1G1-130581463/saving-language-chutzpah Norman Lebrecht] in the Evening Standard (March 21, 2005), [https://www.dovidkatz.net/Reviews/soy_57_TimesHigher.htm Susanne Marten-Finnis] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304043328/http://www.dovidkatz.net/Reviews/soy_57_TimesHigher.htm |date=2016-03-04 }} in the Times Higher Education Supplement (Oct 6, 2006), [https://archive.today/20130420125049/http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/words-on-fire-by-dovid-katz-broutwitting-history-by-aaron-lansky-6151073.html Julia Pascal] in the Independent (March 4, 2005), [https://www.dovidkatz.net/Reviews/soy_4_JerusalemP.htm Miriam Shaviv] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304034710/http://www.dovidkatz.net/Reviews/soy_4_JerusalemP.htm |date=2016-03-04 }} in the Jerusalem Post (2004), [https://www.dovidkatz.net/Reviews/soy_50_LibraryJournal.htm Gene Shaw] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304031627/http://www.dovidkatz.net/Reviews/soy_50_LibraryJournal.htm |date=2016-03-04 }} in Library Journal (Dec. 2004), [https://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/tlssearch.do?querystring=Joseph+Sherman§ionId=1797&p=tls Joseph Sherman] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304130107/http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/tlssearch.do?querystring=Joseph+Sherman§ionId=1797&p=tls |date=2016-03-04 }} in the Times Literary Supplement (May 27, 2005). For years he wrote regular columns for the Forverts (1990s), and in more recent years for the Algemeiner Journal,DovidKatz.net has a number of his Algemeiner Zhurnal (Algemeyner zhurnal) posted, on the pages [https://dovidkatz.net/dovid/dovid_linguistics.htm for Yiddish studies] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171016021520/http://www.dovidkatz.net/dovid/dovid_linguistics.htm |date=2017-10-16 }} and [https://dovidkatz.net/dovid/dovid_lithuania.htm for Lithuanian issues] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171017045527/http://dovidkatz.net/dovid/dovid_lithuania.htm |date=2017-10-17 }}. which seemed to have stopped with the departure of Y.Y. Jacobson as editor around 2010. In 2015, his book Yiddish and Power was published in the UK by Palgrave Macmillan.{{Cite book | url=https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9780230517608 |title = Yiddish and Power | D. Katz | Palgrave Macmillan|year = 2015|doi = 10.1057/9781137475756|last1 = Katz|first1 = Dovid|isbn = 978-1-349-35521-1}}

He is the author of a number of articles on Yiddish in encyclopedias (including The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe)https://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Language/Yiddish {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170914215511/http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Language/Yiddish |date=2017-09-14 }} YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern EuropeHe later posted a slightly [https://dovidkatz.net/dovid/PDFLinguistics/2008_YIDDISH_Yivo_Encyclopedia.pdf Amended version] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160321055610/http://www.dovidkatz.net/dovid/PDFLinguistics/2008_YIDDISH_Yivo_Encyclopedia.pdf |date=2016-03-21 }} on his website. and book introductions, including the Yivo's reprint of Alexander Harkavy's trilingual Yiddish-English-Hebrew dictionary.Michels, Tony (2005). [https://books.google.com/books?id=DwTXyNMiYAgC&pg=PA275 A Fire in Their Hearts: Yiddish Socialists in New York]. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. p. 275, note 62: "... see Dovid Katz, 'Alexander Harkavy and his Trilingual Dictionary,' introduction to the 1988 edition of Harkavy's Yiddish-English-Hebrew Dictionary (YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and Schocken Books, 1988) ..."Katz, Dovid, "[http://yalebooks.com/sites/default/files/files/Media/9780300108392_Harkavy_Yiddish%20Dictionary/9780300108392_preface.pdf Alexander Harkavy and his Trilingual Dictionary]", in Alexander Harkavy, Yidish-English-Hebreisher verterbukh by Alexander Harkavy, Yidish-English-Hebreisher verterbukh. YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. Reprinted by Yale University Press, 2006.

After a year as visiting professor at Yale University (1998–1999), Katz relocated to Vilnius in 1999 in order to take up a new chair in Yiddish language, literature and culture at Vilnius University, and to found the university's Center for Stateless Cultures,https://www.baltictimes.com/news/articles/939/ Center for Stateless Cultures which he directed for its first two years. He had relocated his old Oxford Yiddish summer program to Vilnius a year earlier (summer 1998). In 2001, he co-founded the Vilnius Yiddish Institute at Vilnius University and remained its research director and primary instructor until 2010. His works on Litvak (Lithuanian Jewish) culture include the folio volume "Lithuanian Jewish Culture" (Baltos lankos, Vilnius 2004, revised edition 2010), "Windows to a Lost Jewish Past: Vilna Book Stamps" (Versus aureus, Vilnius 2008), and "Seven Kingdoms of the Litvaks" (International Cultural Program Center, Vilnius 2009).https://dovidkatz.net/dovid/Lithuania/7_KingdomsLitvaks.pdf {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171115162642/http://www.dovidkatz.net/dovid/Lithuania/7_KingdomsLitvaks.pdf |date=2017-11-15 }} "Seven Kingdoms of the Litvaks" In 2009 he directed the "Jewish Lithuania" program for Summer Literary Seminars in Vilnius. He has proposed "Litvak Studies"https://defendinghistory.com/litvak-studies {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171015135753/http://defendinghistory.com/litvak-studies |date=2017-10-15 }} "Litvak Studies" as a potential program of study.

He began to write short stories in Yiddish following his father's death in 1991, and published four collections in book form under the nom de plume {{visible anchor|Heershadovid Menkes}} (Yiddish: {{visible anchor|הירשע־דוד מעינקעס}}—Hirshe-Dovid Meynkes): Eldra Don, 1992; The Flat Peak, 1993; Tales of the Misnagdim from Vilna Province, 1996; Einstein from Svir and Other Yiddish Short Stories, 2020. After experimenting with modern themes in the 1990s, he abandoned them for the vanished life of old Jewish Lithuania, to some extent violating norms of modern Yiddish to write works set in older Jewish Lithuania in local dialect.

Awards for his fiction came from within the secular Yiddish environment: the Hirsh Rosenfeld Award (Canadian Jewish Congress, 1994), the Zhitlovsky Prize (Ikuf, 1996), the Itzik Manger Prize (1997) and the Rubinlicht Prize (2020).[https://forward.com/yiddish/461120/rubinlicht-prize-jury-names-dovid-katz-a-new-classic-writer-of-yiddish/ Rubinlicht Prize jury names Dovid Katz a new classic writer of Yiddish literature], The Forward.

In 1994 he founded at Oxford the then sole literary monthly magazine in Yiddish, "Yiddish Pen"https://www.dovidkatz.net/dovid/dovid_periodicals.htm#YP {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170817041939/http://dovidkatz.net/dovid/dovid_periodicals.htm#YP |date=2017-08-17 }} "Yiddish Pen" and edited its first 27 issues.See: https://www.dovidkatz.net/dovid/dovid_periodicals.htm {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170817041939/http://dovidkatz.net/dovid/dovid_periodicals.htm |date=2017-08-17 }} It did not, however, usher in the literary revival he had hoped for, and his own works of fiction received little recognition outside the narrow world of secular Yiddish culture. In 2001-2002 he was a Guggenheim Fellow in Yiddish literature. A number of translated volumes appeared. In English: City in the Moonlight: Stories of the Old-time Lithuanian Jews (2012);Selected and translated by Barnett Zumoff. Ktav: New York 2012 East Broadway to Whitechapel (2025).Selected and translated by Barnett Zumoff. Noir Press, Nottingham: 2025 In German: Ostjüdische Geschichten aus dem alten Litauen.Selected and translated by Melitta Depner. Salon: München 2012. In Italian: Nóah Anshel dell'altro mondo (2002).Introduzione e traduzione di Erri De Luca. Libreria Dante & Descartes: Napoli 2002.

Katz, taken aback by the poverty he found among the last aged Yiddish speakers in Eastern Europe (many of them "flight survivors" who survived the war by fleeing to the Soviet Union, hence not eligible for aid under the narrow definition of "Holocaust survivor"), alerted the wider world to the issue in a 1999 op-edhttps://dovidkatz.net/dovid/Lithuania/1999-How%20to%20help%20the%20Holocausts%20Last%20Victims.jpg {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304031039/http://dovidkatz.net/dovid/Lithuania/1999-How%20to%20help%20the%20Holocausts%20Last%20Victims.jpg |date=2016-03-04 }} 1999 op-ed in the Forward, which was cited by Judge Edward R. Korman in the Swiss Banks settlement{{cite web|url=https://www.swissbankclaims.com/Documents/Doc_51_HSF.pdf |title=Archived copy |access-date=2012-11-20 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120107170608/https://swissbankclaims.com/Documents/Doc_51_HSF.pdf |archive-date=2012-01-07 }} The Swiss Banks settlement in the U.S. District Court in 2004. Katz began to work closely with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) on these issues, and he helped the founders of the Survivor Mitzvah Project by a group based in Santa Monica, California.

In 2012, he took part in the Channel 4 reality series "Jewish Mum of the Year" as one of the judging panel alongside Tracy-Ann Oberman and Richard Ferrer.See Richard Ferrer in the Independent,16 Oct 2012, online at: https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/channel-4s-jewish-mum-of-the-year-was-my-idea-and-im-proud-of-it-8209464.html. Most of the reviews of his own appearance judged it negativelySee the reviews by [https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/last-nights-viewing—jewish-mum-of-the-year-channel-4-fresh-meat-channel-4-8204217.html?origin=internalSearch Tom Sutcliffe in the Independent] and [https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2012/oct/09/jewish-mum-of-the-year?INTCMP=SRCH John Crace in the Guardian]. and he did not think much of the program himself.

In 2013, he initiated a "[http://defendinghistory.com/virtual-yiddish-mini-museum-of-old-jewish-vilna-index/91536 Virtual Mini Museum of Old Jewish Vilna]" with item descriptions in Yiddish and index in English.

In June 2014, two articles in Tablet magazine focused on the recent history and status of Yiddish linguistics, including his own contributions (and controversies).See Cherie Woodworth's [https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/165247/yiddish-ashkenazi-woodworth "Where did Yiddish come from?"] and Batya Ungar-Sargon's [https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/176580/yiddishland "The mystery of the origins of Yiddish will never be solved"] Katz promptly responded (in Yiddish).Dovid Katz, [https://defendinghistory.com/freewheeling-deconstruction-max-weinreich-ongoing-machinations-weakened-field-yiddish "Tsu der zorglozer dekonstruktsye fun Maks Vaynraykhn"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170821194602/http://defendinghistory.com/freewheeling-deconstruction-max-weinreich-ongoing-machinations-weakened-field-yiddish |date=2017-08-21 }}

In 2015, he embarked on a project to translate the (Hebrew) Bible into Lithuanian Yiddish.His online contents of the translations to date are at: https://defendinghistory.com/lithuanian-yiddish-bible-translations {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171016125943/http://defendinghistory.com/lithuanian-yiddish-bible-translations |date=2017-10-16 }} By early 2021, he had posted draft translations of [https://defendinghistory.com/lithuanian-yiddish-bible-translations eighteen books]. Only two appeared in hard copy pamphlet form: [https://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Book-of-Ruth.pdf the Book of Ruth] in 2017, and, in memory of his mother, who died in 2019, [https://www.dovidkatz.net/dovid/Bible/Book-of-Esther-single-column.pdf the Book of Esther], in 2020, in which some of the more preposterous characters in the biblical narrative speak an extreme dialect form of Lithuanian Yiddish.

In 2018, to honor the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the modern Lithuanian republic in 1918, he initiated [http://defendinghistory.com/index-to-virtual-mini-museum-of-jewish-life-in-the-interwar-lithuanian-republic/91524 a new online Yiddish "mini-museum"] stressing interwar Yiddish-Lithuanian multicultural and bilingual life.

The same year, he launched online a draft version of his Yiddish Cultural Dictionary, which is a free online English-Yiddish dictionary that stresses cultural specificities, with all discussions of entries in Yiddish; rooted in his descriptivist perspective in Yiddish stylistics, it contains detailed commentary about usage in Standard Yiddish, and also in both Northeastern (Lithuanian) and Central (Mideastern / Polish) dialects of Yiddish.Burko, Alex (Leyzer) (June 2018)."[https://ingeveb.org/articles/review-of-the-comprehensive-english-yiddish-dictionary Review of the Comprehensive English-Yiddish Dictionary]". In geveb. Retrieved 2021-01-01. By early 2025, it had around 40,000 entries and around 800,000 words of text.

In late 2021, he initiated the [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL89369D626BD42D2C Lithuanian Yiddish Video Archive (LYVA)] by putting on line several hundred (unedited) videos from his thirty years of expeditions to the last native speakers of Northeastern ("Lithuanian") Yiddish in Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, northeastern Poland and eastern Ukraine.Matveyev, Yoel (2 Nov. 2021).[https://forward.com/yiddish/477561/huge-video-archive-of-native-yiddish-speakers-now-online/]". Retrieved 2021-11-13.

After observing the Vilnius scene for years, Dovid Katz began in 2008 to publicly challenge the double genocide theory of World War II and the accusations against Holocaust survivors who survived by joining the Jewish partisans. In a Rothschild Foundation London seminar in February that year he proposed the term "Holocaust obfuscation" for an East European trend to downgrade the Holocaust into one of two purportedly equal genocides (without actually denying any deaths); he refined the term in a 2009 paper.Dovid Katz, "On three definitions: Genocide; Holocaust Denial; Holocaust Obfuscation" in L. Donskis, ed., "A Litmus Test Case of Modernity (etc.), Peter Lang 2009, pp. 259-277. Online at: https://www.defendinghistory.com/2009SeptDovidKatz3Definitions.pdf {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304131711/http://www.defendinghistory.com/2009SeptDovidKatz3Definitions.pdf |date=2016-03-04 }} When, in May 2008, Lithuanian prosecutors launched investigations of two more elderly Holocaust survivors, Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky and Rachel Margolis, Katz embarked on a new activist phase of his life. He became a staunch advocate for the accused Holocaust survivors who were under investigation, and played a role in mobilizing the Western diplomatic community in Vilnius to support them. Results, achieved in partnership with Vilnius-based diplomats, included a reception by the Irish ambassador for Ms. Brantsovsky, awarding her a certificate,https://holocaustinthebaltics.com/2June2008IrishEmbassy.JPG A certificate on 3 June 2008 (the same day the Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism was signed), and a certificate of merithttps://holocaustinthebaltics.com/30April2008USEmbassyCertificatetoFania.jpg Certificate of merit from the American ambassador. This was followed in August that year by a letter from nine NATO-member embassieshttps://www.holocaustinthebaltics.com/25August2008fromninewesternemnbassies.pdf A letter from nine NATO-member embassies to Rachel Margolis in Rehovot, Israel, and, in 2010, by a letter from seven European ambassadorshttps://defendinghistory.com/ambassadors-protest-antisemitism-in-lithuania/6362 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170928082602/http://defendinghistory.com/ambassadors-protest-antisemitism-in-lithuania/6362 |date=2017-09-28 }} A letter from seven European ambassadors that noted the legalization of swastikas that year, renewed Holocaust denial, and the attempts to "equalize" Nazi and Soviet crimes.

Professor Katz was apparently the first to publicly challenge the 2008 Prague Declaration in two May 2009 op-eds, in The Jewish ChronicleDovid Katz, "Prague's declaration of disgrace" in the Jewish Chronicle, 21 May 2009. Online at: https://www.thejc.com/comment/comment/prague%E2%80%99s-declaration-disgrace and The Irish Times.Dovid Katz, "'Genocide industry' has hidden agenda" in the Irish Times, 30 May 2009. Online at: https://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/0530/1224247744866.html?via=mr. He subsequently contributed articles to The Guardian (in 2010),{{cite web |title=Halting Holocaust obfuscation {{!}} Dovid Katz |date=2010-01-08 |website=The Guardian |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230707152132/https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/jan/08/holocaust-baltic-lithuania-latvia |archive-date=2023-07-07 |url-status=live |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/jan/08/holocaust-baltic-lithuania-latvia}} Tablet magazine (2010),https://www.tabletmag.com/news-and-politics/32432/the-crime-of-surviving/print/ Tablet The Jerusalem Post (2011),https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=244192 Jerusalem Post the London Jewish News (2012),https://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Dovid-Katz-in-London-Jewish-News-3-August2012.pdf {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304104309/http://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Dovid-Katz-in-London-Jewish-News-3-August2012.pdf |date=2016-03-04 }} The London Jewish News The Times of Israel (2012),https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/efraim-zuroff-historys-lonely-sentinel/ The Times of Israel and other publications.A [https://defendinghistory.com/the-editor list of his published articles on these subjects] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170703000117/http://defendinghistory.com/the-editor |date=2017-07-03 }} is provided in DefendingHistory.com. He has lectured on these issues at the Jewish National Fund in Adelaide, Australia (May 2011),https://holocaustinthebaltics.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/11-AGM-INVITATION-1.pdf The Jewish National Fund in Adelaide, Australia Lund University in Sweden (May 2010),https://jiddisch.blogg.se/2010/may/sprak-och-litteraturcentrum-lunds-universit.html {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170928010043/http://jiddisch.blogg.se/2010/may/sprak-och-litteraturcentrum-lunds-universit.html |date=2017-09-28 }} Lund University in Sweden Monash University in Melbourne (June 2011),{{cite web|url=https://arts.monash.edu.au/jewish-civilisation/news-and-events/aftermath/keynote-speakers.php |title=KEYNOTE SPEAKERS, Arts, Monash University |access-date=2012-11-21 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120325193327/https://www.arts.monash.edu.au/jewish-civilisation/news-and-events/aftermath/keynote-speakers.php |archive-date=2012-03-25 }} Monash Univ. in Melbourne Musée d'Aquitaine in Bordeaux (March 2012),https://www.dovidkatz.net/ToyShop/BordeauxPosterMarch2012.jpg {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304032157/http://www.dovidkatz.net/ToyShop/BordeauxPosterMarch2012.jpg |date=2016-03-04 }} Musée d'Aquitaine in Bordeaux Rutgers University (Nov 2008),https://jewishstudies.rutgers.edu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=248&Itemid=254 Rutgers University of Pennsylvania (Nov 2008),{{cite web |url=https://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jwst/events08C.htm |title=Jewish Studies Program |access-date=2012-11-21 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120305221913/https://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jwst/events08C.htm |archive-date=2012-03-05 }} Univ. of Pennsylvania University of South Carolina at Columbia (March 2011),https://holocaustinthebaltics.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/USC-March-25-2011-USC-Symposium-on-Politics-of-the-Holocaust.pdf Univ. of South Carolina at Columbia the Woodrow Wilson Center's Kennan Institute in Washington, D.C. (March 2011),https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/holocaust-revisionism-ultranationalism-and-the-nazisoviet-double-genocide-debate-eastern The Woodrow Wilson Center's Kennan Institute in Washington DC University of London (April 2009),{{cite web|url=https://www.judaicvilnius.com/en/main/in_news?ID%3D98%268b208d1a2d113dade6b704e6589d1767%3Dce79a40792367a4e9fa54e2f4301efc5 |title=Vilnius Yiddish Institute – the first Yiddish center of higher learning to be established in post-Holocaust Eastern Europe |access-date=2012-11-21 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120314121025/https://www.judaicvilnius.com/en/main/in_news?ID=98&8b208d1a2d113dade6b704e6589d1767=ce79a40792367a4e9fa54e2f4301efc5 |archive-date=2012-03-14 }} Univ. of London and Yeshiva University (March 2011),https://www.facebook.com/events/192723777433231/ Yeshiva Univ. {{User-generated source|certain=yes|date=March 2022}} among others.A more complete listing of public lectures is found on his "Events" page, at: https://dovidkatz.net/ToyShop/_Events.htm {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160826052841/http://www.dovidkatz.net/ToyShop/_Events.htm |date=2016-08-26 }}.

His professorship at Vilnius University was terminated after eleven years in 2010 after he published several articles critical of Lithuanian prosecutors' campaign against Holocaust survivors who joined the partisans. He began (and continues) to [http://dovidkatz.net/dovid/dovid_cv.htm lecture quite widely]. In 2016 was appointed professor (on an adjunct basis) at Vilnius Gediminas Technical University (VGTU), [http://ki.vgtu.lt/creative-industries/departments/department-of-philosophy-and-cultural-studies/contacts/55890 in the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Studies], where he taught courses in Creative Writing and Ethics, until taking leave in 2020.

In September 2009 Katz launched the his self-published online journal HolocaustInTheBaltics.com, which was renamed a year later DefendingHistory.com, and came to include contributions by several dozen authors;https://defendinghistory.com/authors {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170920083001/http://defendinghistory.com/authors |date=2017-09-20 }} Authors it has sections on the regional glorification of local Nazi collaborators,https://defendinghistory.com/category/collaborators-glorified {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170911152533/http://defendinghistory.com/category/collaborators-glorified |date=2017-09-11 }} Glorification of local Nazi collaborators and the related "exotic tourism"https://defendinghistory.com/category/exotic-jewish-tourism {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171015135641/http://defendinghistory.com/category/exotic-jewish-tourism |date=2017-10-15 }} "Exotic tourism" as well as Opinion,https://defendinghistory.com/category/opinion {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171008151807/http://defendinghistory.com/category/opinion |date=2017-10-08 }} Opinion Books,https://defendinghistory.com/category/books {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171016011202/http://defendinghistory.com/category/books |date=2017-10-16 }} Books Filmhttps://defendinghistory.com/category/theatre {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130907132539/http://defendinghistory.com/category/theatre |date=2013-09-07 }} Film and Historyhttps://defendinghistory.com/category/history {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171019000632/http://defendinghistory.com/category/history |date=2017-10-19 }} History sections. Over time, DefendingHistory has also become one of the addresses for resources in Litvak (Lithuanian Jewish) affairs,https://defendinghistory.com/jewish-lithuania {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170928192507/http://defendinghistory.com/jewish-lithuania |date=2017-09-28 }} Resources in Litvak (Lithuanian Jewish) affairs including culture, history, news, tourism and "dark tourism."

In 2012 he co-authored (with Danny Ben-Moshe) The Seventy Years Declaration,{{Cite web |url=https://defendinghistory.com/70-years-declaration/29230 |title=Seventy Years Declaration |access-date=2017-09-27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170928084120/http://defendinghistory.com/70-years-declaration/29230 |archive-date=2017-09-28 |url-status=dead }} signed on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference by 71 European parliamentarians (MPs and MEPs, including Conservatives and Liberals as well as Social Democrats and Labor, also—eight Lithuanian Social Democratic parliamentarians). He was invited to present it formally to Martin Schulz,https://ec.europa.eu/avservices/services/showShotlist.do?filmRef=82876&out=HTML&lg=en&src=1 Martin Schulz president of the European Parliament, in Strasbourg on March 14, 2012.Text at: https://defendinghistory.com/70-years-declaration/29230 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170928084120/http://defendinghistory.com/70-years-declaration/29230 |date=2017-09-28 }}. The Jerusalem Post report by Danny-Ben Moshe, Jan 18, 2012, at: https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=254222; NY Times report by Roger Cohen, 30 Jan 2012, at: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/31/opinion/the-suffering-olympics.html.

Katz's work on the Holocaust in Lithuania and related antisemitism issues was among the subjects of a 2010 BBC world service program by Wendy Robbins,{{Cite web |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/player/p00c74k5 |title=BBC - World Service Heart and Soul - the Holocaust Deniers, E |access-date=2017-09-27 |archive-date=2017-12-30 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171230185909/https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/player/p00c74k5 |url-status=dead }} and a 2012 Australian documentary film by Marc Radomsky and Danny Ben-Moshe.Marc Radomsky and Danny Ben-Moshe (producers), "Rewriting History". Website: https://rewriting-history.org {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150430102417/http://rewriting-history.org/ |date=2015-04-30 }}; review by Graeme Blundell in the Australian, Sept 14, 2012, at: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/television/lithuanias-lies-and-deception-exposed/story-fncnqfdm-1226473912101. He has participated in various public debates on these subjects,{{cite news|url=https://www.economist.com/node/11958563?story_id=E1_TTJVRVGP|title=Prosecution and persecution. Lithuania must stop blaming the victims |date=21 August 2008|newspaper=The Economist|access-date=3 February 2012}}{{cite web|url=https://www.haaretz.com/news/when-lithuania-was-yiddishland-1.270841|title=When Lithuania was 'Yiddishland'|last=Ahren|first=Raphael |date=24 February 2009|publisher=Haaretz|access-date=3 February 2012}}[https://www.wiesenthal.com/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=lsKWLbPJLnF&b=4441467&ct=7548759 "Wiesenthal Centre To OSCE Human Rights Conference 'Prague Declaration' is "A Project to Delete the Holocaust from European History".] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170928005736/http://www.wiesenthal.com/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=lsKWLbPJLnF&b=4441467&ct=7548759 |date=2017-09-28 }} 2009 News Releases. Simon Wiesenthal Center. October 5, 2009. Retrieved 2 November 2009. and has publicly disagreed with Yale Professor Timothy D. Snyder on the related history, in a 2010 Guardian debate preceding publication of Snyder's Bloodlands in a book review in East European Jewish Studies (2011),{{cite news|last1=Katz|first1=Dovid|title=Why red is not brown in the Baltics {{!}} Dovid Katz|url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/sep/30/baltic-nazi-soviet-snyder|work=The Guardian|date=30 September 2010}}https://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Dovid-Katzs-review-of-Bloodlands-in-EEJA-Dec-2011.pdf {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304101448/http://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Dovid-Katzs-review-of-Bloodlands-in-EEJA-Dec-2011.pdf |date=2016-03-04 }} Book review in East European Jewish Studies and an open letterhttps://www.algemeiner.com/2012/05/21/an-open-letter-to-yale-history-professor-timothy-snyder/ An open letter during the controversy over the reburial with full honors[https://web.archive.org/web/20190304204233/http://defendinghistory.com/?p=34584] Controversy over the reburial with full honors in 2012 of the 1941 Nazi puppet prime minister in Lithuania. He also engaged in public debate with the director of YIVOhttps://defendinghistory.com/et-tu-yivo-2011-holocaust-survivor-community-is-jolted-by-yivo-plan-to-honor-the-lithuanian-foreign-minister-on-22-september/21195 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170928220020/http://defendinghistory.com/et-tu-yivo-2011-holocaust-survivor-community-is-jolted-by-yivo-plan-to-honor-the-lithuanian-foreign-minister-on-22-september/21195 |date=2017-09-28 }} Debate with the director of YIVO and the Economist's Edward Lucas.https://www.economist.com/user/4407709/comments The Economist's Edward LucasAn edited version of Katz's reply to the Economist appeared the same day, June 15, 2012 [https://defendinghistory.com/reply-to-the-economist-on-lithuanias-recent-reburial-of-the-1941-nazi-puppet-prime-minister/37091 in Defending History] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170928220016/http://defendinghistory.com/reply-to-the-economist-on-lithuanias-recent-reburial-of-the-1941-nazi-puppet-prime-minister/37091 |date=2017-09-28 }}.

His work in the field of human rights has included on-site protest and monitoring of state-sanctioned city-center nationalist parades in Vilniushttps://defendinghistory.com/over-1000-neo-nazis-fill-main-vilnius-boulevard-on-lithuanian-independence-day/32439 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170928084135/http://defendinghistory.com/over-1000-neo-nazis-fill-main-vilnius-boulevard-on-lithuanian-independence-day/32439 |date=2017-09-28 }} Vilnius and Kaunashttps://defendinghistory.com/300-neo-nazis-march-through-the-center-of-kaunas-on-lithuanian-independence-day-they-are-addressed-by-members-of-parliament/31188 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170928081056/http://defendinghistory.com/300-neo-nazis-march-through-the-center-of-kaunas-on-lithuanian-independence-day-they-are-addressed-by-members-of-parliament/31188 |date=2017-09-28 }} Kaunas in Lithuania, and Waffen-SS paradeshttps://defendinghistory.com/1500-honor-the-waffen-ss-at-rigas-liberty-monumuent-event-is-praised-by-latvias-president-condemned-by-the-european-commission/32654 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170928082607/http://defendinghistory.com/1500-honor-the-waffen-ss-at-rigas-liberty-monumuent-event-is-praised-by-latvias-president-condemned-by-the-european-commission/32654 |date=2017-09-28 }} Waffen SS parades in the Latvian capital Riga, taking note also of anti-Polish, anti-Russian, anti-Roma and anti-gay signs, slogans and publications.Reports in [https://account.thetimes.co.uk/login?state=hKFo2SBUa1c1bm1jNmdLMW1qRWFnNnhSRzJ5VE85aHNMekxFUaFupWxvZ2luo3RpZNkgQ1JPVjE4YVRma2VkaEhsSmpjOTFNeVgtc29SVF9Xa1ijY2lk2SBEbXNVM0JCbXltb1VYT1JuWG9xcXJxaUJMTEtJNkl2Sg&client=DmsU3BBmymoUXORnXoqqrqiBLLKI6IvJ&protocol=oauth2&prompt=login&scope=openid%20profile%20email&response_type=code&nustate=eyJyZXR1cm5fdXJsIjoiaHR0cDovL3d3dy50aGV0aW1lcy5jby51ay90dG8vbmV3cy93b3JsZC9ldXJvcGUvIiwiZG9tYWluTmFtZSI6Ind3dy50aGV0aW1lcy5jby51ayJ9&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Flogin.thetimes.co.uk%2Foidc%2Frp%2Fcallback London Times] (2010), [https://www.theguardian.com/world/feedarticle/10147739 Guardian] (2012), in [https://www.lrytas.lt/-13294052311329009675-profesorius-d-kacas-nacionalist%C5%B3-eityn%C4%97s-vasario-16-%C4%85j%C4%85-visos-lietuvos-g%C4%97da.htm Lietuvos rytas] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140316201250/http://www.lrytas.lt/-13294052311329009675-profesorius-d-kacas-nacionalist%C5%B3-eityn%C4%97s-vasario-16-%C4%85j%C4%85-visos-lietuvos-g%C4%97da.htm |date=2014-03-16 }} re Kaunas (2012), [https://www.lrytas.lt/-13313628741330639138-%C5%BEyd%C5%B3-aktyvistai-radikalams-si%C5%ABlo-%C5%BEygiuotibalbieri%C5%A1k%C4%97se.htm Lietuvos rytas] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140316200820/http://www.lrytas.lt/-13313628741330639138-%C5%BEyd%C5%B3-aktyvistai-radikalams-si%C5%ABlo-%C5%BEygiuotibalbieri%C5%A1k%C4%97se.htm |date=2014-03-16 }} re Vilnius (2012); [https://tv.lrytas.lt/?id=13609449121359764409 Lrytas.tv] and [https://www.15min.lt/naujiena/aktualu/lietuva/efraimas-zuroffas-vasario-16-osios-eitynes-kaune-paremtos-ta-pacia-ideologija-kaip-zudynes-lietukio-garaze-56-307280 15min.lt] re Kaunas 2013. In 2013 he added an LGBT rights sectionhttps://defendinghistory.com/category/lgbt-rights {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180819140916/http://defendinghistory.com/category/lgbt-rights |date=2018-08-19 }} LGBT rights section to Defending History. Twice, in 2010https://defendinghistory.com/only-in-eastern-europe-convicted-nazi-war-criminal-96-is-the-plaintiff/7618 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170928084123/http://defendinghistory.com/only-in-eastern-europe-convicted-nazi-war-criminal-96-is-the-plaintiff/7618 |date=2017-09-28 }} 2010 and in 2011, he appeared in Budapesthttps://defendinghistory.com/?p=27476%20{{Dead link|date=July 2019 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} Budapest to report on what he regarded as "sensationally absurd" trials of Holocaust historian and Nazi-hunter Efraim Zuroff, director of the Wiesenthal Center's Israel office, on charges of "libel" leveled by a twice-convicted Nazi war criminal whom Dr. Zuroff had exposed. On the subject of free speech, he has been a vocal critic of Lithuania's 2010 lawhttps://holocaustinthebaltics.com/red-brown-bill-with-two-years-of-jailtime-for-disagreeing-with-governments-position-is-signed-into-law/843 A vocal critic of Lithuania's 2010 law forbidding the denial or trivialization of Soviet and Nazi genocide, which he believes, in agreement with Leonidas Donskis,https://www.holocaustinthebaltics.com/2008OctDecDonskisCriminalizationofDebate.PDF Agreement with Leonidas Donskis to constitute criminalization of debate. When the law was applied to a left-wing politician with whom he disagreed wholly on the 1991 events in question, Katz nevertheless felt it important to speak out for free speech,https://defendinghistory.com/on-the-paleckis-trial-in-vilnius/14504 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170928081053/http://defendinghistory.com/on-the-paleckis-trial-in-vilnius/14504 |date=2017-09-28 }} Free speech and, in a reply to Rokas Grajauskas in Lithuanian Foreign Policy Reviewhttps://defendinghistory.com/13705/13705 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170928082614/http://defendinghistory.com/13705/13705 |date=2017-09-28 }} Lithuanian Foreign Policy Review made clear his view that objecting to Holocaust Obfuscation in no way signifies reluctance to expose Stalinist crimes.

In recent years, Katz has registered concern regarding purported policy shifts toward Holocaust Obfuscation and Double Genocide by the United States Department of State, in articles in Tablet (2010),{{cite news|last1=Katz|first1=Dovid|title=Conference Call: The Lithuanian sponsors of a Holocaust education program have a dark history of their own|url=https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/52058/conference-call|work=Tablet|issue=December 3, 2010|language=en}} The Guardian (2010){{cite web |title=Why is the US silent on 'double genocide'? {{!}} Dovid Katz |date=2010-12-21 |website=The Guardian |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230630113820/https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/dec/21/double-genocide-baltic-us-europe |archive-date=2023-06-30 |url-status=live |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/dec/21/double-genocide-baltic-us-europe}} Algemeiner Journal (2011),{{cite news|last1=Katz|first1=Dovid|title=Hannah Rosenthal Does It Again|url=https://www.algemeiner.com/2011/11/25/hannah-rosenthal-does-it-again/|work=The Algemeiner|date=November 25, 2011}} The Times of Israel (2012){{cite news|last1=Katz|first1=Dovid|title=Efraim Zuroff, history's lonely defender|url=https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/efraim-zuroff-historys-lonely-sentinel/|work=The Times of Israel|date=November 15, 2012}} and a list of publications maintained on DefendingHistory.com.https://defendinghistory.com/category/us-state-dept-manipulated {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180607202610/http://defendinghistory.com/category/us-state-dept-manipulated |date=2018-06-07 }} List of publications maintained on DefendingHistory.com He also spoke out regarding alliances binding the UK's Conservative Party with controversial East European right wing politics, in The Irish Times (2009),https://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/1031/1224257766699.html Irish Times The Guardian (2010), The Jewish Chronicle (2010),{{cite news|last1=Katz|first1=Dovid|title=It is time for Cameron to reject the EU nutters|url=https://www.thejc.com/comment/comment/it-is-time-for-cameron-to-reject-the-eu-nutters-1.15790|work=www.thejc.com|date=May 27, 2010}} and the London Jewish News (2012).https://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Dovid-Katz-op-ed-in-London-Jewish-News-13-Dec-2012.pdf {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160328092448/http://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Dovid-Katz-op-ed-in-London-Jewish-News-13-Dec-2012.pdf |date=2016-03-28 }} Jewish News Analogously, he challenged Israeli foreign policy on alleged acequiscence to Holocaust Obfuscation in return for diplomatic support, in venues including the Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs,https://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/2010IsraelJournalofForeignAffairsDovidKatz.pdf {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304215141/http://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/2010IsraelJournalofForeignAffairsDovidKatz.pdf |date=2016-03-04 }} Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs The Jerusalem Post, The Times of Israel and DefendingHistory.com.https://defendinghistory.com/category/israel {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180708111011/http://defendinghistory.com/category/israel |date=2018-07-08 }} DefendingHistory.com

In the spring of 2011, Katz was Jan Randa Visiting Scholar at the Australian Center for Jewish Civilization (ACJC) at Monash University in Melbourne where he lectured on both Yiddish Studies and Holocaust issues. He has worked to define the new and "nuanced" elitist East European antisemitism and its success in attracting unsuspecting westerners to help provide political cover. He presented findings at Yale Universityhttps://holocaustinthebaltics.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/YALE14Apr2011.pdf.pdf Yale University and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars{{cite web|title=Holocaust Revisionism, Ultranationalism, and the Nazi/Soviet "Double Genocide" Debate in Eastern Europe|url=https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/holocaust-revisionism-ultranationalism-and-the-nazisoviet-double-genocide-debate-eastern|website=Wilson Center|date=7 July 2011}} in 2011, and at a December 13, 2012 ISGAP event at Fordham Universityhttps://vimeo.com/55692172 December 13, 2012 ISGAP event at Fordham University in New York City. He participated in the April 18, 2013 seminar on "{{visible anchor|Red equals Brown}} issues"https://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/flyer_rot_gleich_braun.pdf {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304215153/http://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/flyer_rot_gleich_braun.pdf |date=2016-03-04 }} Seminar on "red-brown issues" in Berlin, and a May 27–28, 2013 conference in Riga on Holocaust commemoration in post-communist Eastern Europe.{{Cite web |url=https://www.shamir.lv/en/item/190-the_second_international_conference_holocaust_museums_and_memorial_places_in_post-communist_countries_challenges_and_opportunities_.html |title=SHAMIR |access-date=2017-09-27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160317003737/http://shamir.lv/en/item/190-the_second_international_conference_holocaust_museums_and_memorial_places_in_post-communist_countries_challenges_and_opportunities_.html |archive-date=2016-03-17 |url-status=dead }} A Spring 2016 lecture tour included lectures on Yiddish, Litvak and Holocaust topics at the University of Toronto and York University in Toronto; UCLA in Los Angeles; ISGAP, Baruch College, and the Mid-Manhattan New York Public Library in New York; Fairfield University and Yale in Connecticut.A list of his spring 2016 lecture tour venues with further links: https://defendinghistory.com/spring-2016-lecture-tour-in-north-america {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170823225056/http://defendinghistory.com/spring-2016-lecture-tour-in-north-america |date=2017-08-23 }} In Sept. 2016 he was [http://ki.vgtu.lt/creative-industries/departments/department-of-philosophy-and-cultural-studies/contacts/55890 appointed professor at another university in Vilnius], VGTU, in its Department of Philosophy and Cultural Studies.

Germany's Federal Agency for Civic Education (FACE, German: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (bpb)) hired Katz in 2021 to [https://histocon.de/histoPOD/vol-8-commemorating-the-holocaust-lithuania classify today's historical significance of eighty years since Operation Barbarossa (Germany's attack on the Soviet Union)] where the Nazis (prior to the "Wannseekonferenz") experienced that Holocaust in the Eastern Territories ("the Bloodlands") was "doable", not least because nationalist leaders in the Baltic States and Ukraine, hated the Soviet Union and Russia much more than collaborating with Nazis. Bandera, Norieka and Skirpa whose ideas were responsible for mass killings of Jews and Poles, still today (2023) are honored by street names and plaques as freedom fighters in their respective countries.

Unexpectedly for many in his circles, he became, in 2015, a staunch opponent of plans to locate a national convention center on the grounds of Vilnius's 15th century-origin old Jewish cemetery. His activities included helping inspire an array of international published protest statements,See: https://defendinghistory.com/who-is-opposed-to-the-convention-center-on-the-old-vilna-jewish-cemetery-at-piramont-in-snipiskes/75558 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171011143747/http://defendinghistory.com/who-is-opposed-to-the-convention-center-on-the-old-vilna-jewish-cemetery-at-piramont-in-snipiskes/75558 |date=2017-10-11 }} maintaining a monitoring section in Defending History.See: https://defendinghistory.com/category/jewish-cemetery-piramont-snipiskes-shnipishok {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170911065127/http://defendinghistory.com/category/jewish-cemetery-piramont-snipiskes-shnipishok |date=2017-09-11 }} One summary of his views appeared in The Times of Israel in late 2015.See Dovid Katz, "Lithuania's Liveliest Cemetery" in The Times of Israel, 13 December 2015 (https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/lithuanias-liveliest-cemetery/). He has argued that the rights of the dead, especially those in long-ago paid-for burial plots, include the right to be left in peace.

Katz keeps [http://defendinghistory.com/dovid-katz-recent-publications71810-2 an online record of his published writings], and a separate list of papers on Holocaust Studies in [https://web.archive.org/web/20170928075546/http://defendinghistory.com/holocaust-and-antisemitism-studies-papers-and-reviewsin-academic-venues academic format]. A few reflections on his life were recorded in April 2016 by Larry Yudelson in The Jewish Standard,See Larry Yudelson, "Litvak with Attitude" in the Jewish Standard (The Times of Israel), April 7, 2016 (https://jewishstandard.timesofisrael.com/litvak-with-attitude/). and in August of the same year by Inga Liutkevičienė in Bernardinai.lt.See Inga Liutkevičienė, "My Father Taught Me to be Proud that We Are Litvaks" in Bernardinai.lt, August 5, 2016 (https://www.bernardinai.lt/straipsnis/2016-08-05-dovydas-kacas-tevas-mane-ismoke-didziuotis-tuo-kad-priklausome-litvakams/147387 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161022070720/http://www.bernardinai.lt/straipsnis/2016-08-05-dovydas-kacas-tevas-mane-ismoke-didziuotis-tuo-kad-priklausome-litvakams/147387 |date=2016-10-22 }}).

{{reflist|2}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20171008045358/http://dovidkatz.net/ DovidKatz.net], Dovid Katz's website
• [https://defendinghistory.com/authors DefendingHistory.com], web journal founded and edited by Dovid Katz
• [https://independent.academia.edu/DovidKatz/Papers Academia.Edu], Dovid Katz's papers
• [http://yiddishculturaldictionary.org Dovid Katz's Yiddish Cultural Dictionary]

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Category:1956 births

Category:21st-century American historians

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