VCU Libraries 25th Annual Brown-Lyons Lecture

For information about the current Brown-Lyons Lecture, see the event website.

"Attending the Eichmann Trial: Only Yesterday ... a Half Century Ago"

Presented by Dr. Jack D. Spiro
Thursday, March 25, 2010
7:30 p.m.
W.E. Singleton Center for the Performing Arts
922 Park Avenue

"I must inform the Kenesset that a short time ago one of the greatest of the Nazi war criminals, Adolf Eichmann, was discovered by the Israel security services and will shortly be placed on trial in Israel ..." Fifty years ago, on May 23, 1960, David Ben-Gurion read these words before an astonished Israeli parliament.

Dr. Spiro will discuss how his personal experiences in attending the Eichmann trial and his reactions to its aftermath appear in a larger contextual setting five decades later. What he learned ... what he can't forget and wants to remember fifty years after Eichmann's capture and trial when every fourth citizen of Israel was a Holocaust survivor. What was the dramatic difference in the world's response to the Holocaust before and after trial? Does this wretched accomplice to mass murder help us understand the appalling recurrence of genocide in our own day?

The lecture is free and open to the public. Parking is available for a fee in the West Main Street and West Cary Street parking decks. If special accommodations are needed, please call (804) 827-1165 or (804) 827-1163 prior to March 23, 2009. A reception will be held immediately following the lecture.

The 25th Annual Brown-Lyons Lecture is sponsored by the VCU Friends of the Library, the VCU Center for Judaic Studies, the Jewish Community Federation of Richmond, the Richmond Jewish Foundation, and the Weinstein JCC.

Dr. Jack D. Spiro holds the Harry Lyons Distinguished Chair in Judaic Culture at Virginia Commonwealth University. He is also director of the VCU Center for Judaic Studies the VCU Center for Judaic Studies and editor of its online publication, Menorah Review. He has earned two doctorates from the Hebrew Union College and the University of Virginia. He has authored, co-authored, or edited over twenty books and written over forty articles.