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J E R U S A L E M I T E S

An occasional series of interviews with notable veteran olim
who have chosen to make their homes in Jerusalem.
David
Olivestone

DR. EFRAIM ZUROFF

Dr. Efraim Zuroff is director of the Israel office and chief
Nazi hunter of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which
is based in Los Angeles. He has dedicated his life to
tracking down and bringing Nazi war criminals and their
collaborators to trial. The author of four books, which have
been translated into 15 languages, he is an imposing, warm
and vibrant man with an extraordinary memory for names,
numbers, dates, facts, places and, of course, history.

Surely no one grows up thinking at YU, was also one of the leaders of of the Israel army and the Arab armies,
“I’m going to be a Nazi hunter”. Religious Zionism in America, and and I said to myself, “There’s going
What else might have you become? head of the Va’ad Hapo’el of American to be another Shoah!” I was wrong
Mizrachi. of course, and instead it was a great
I was always tall, so as a kid my fantasy victory. So in 1968, I came to spend
was to be the first Orthodox Jewish Were there any survivors of the a year at Hebrew University and I
professional basketball player. I was determined then that I was going to
on the teams both in high school Shoah in your family? make Aliyah and nothing was going
and in college, but I wasn’t anywhere Neither my parents nor my to stop me.
near good enough, nor could I have grandparents were Holocaust
remained frum if I had tried to follow survivors. I tell you point blank that What was your plan when you came
my dream. But basketball is still a if they had been survivors, there is no here?
passion of mine, and I’m a fan and go way I could do what I’m doing, because
to Hapoel Yerushalayim games. it would be too emotional, way too Originally, I was on the path to become
emotional. I am, however, named for an academic. I did a master’s degree
What’s your family background? my grandfather’s brother who was in contemporary Jewry at Hebrew
murdered in Lithuania, together with University, with the Shoah as my
We’re a Yeshiva University family. My his wife and two sons. field of specialization. I eventually
father, Dr. Abraham Zuroff, was a YU completed my doctorate on the
musmach and the principal of the YU Did you always want to make activities of the Vaad HaHatzalah
high school for boys in Brooklyn for rescue committee during World War
30 years, and supervisor of all the YU Aliyah? II, which was published in 2000 as The
high schools. My mother, Esther, was I’m from the generation of 1967. At Response of Orthodox Jewry in the United
director of student services at Stern the outbreak of the Six Day War, States to the Holocaust. But I decided
College. My maternal grandfather, Dr. I remember seeing a chart in a that I was more interested in making
Samuel L. Sar, who was dean of men newspaper comparing the strengths history than in writing it.

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