Esther Webman

Dr. Esther Webbman, who passed away in June 2020, was one of the pillars of scholarly activity at the Moshe Dayan Center.

Dr. Esther Webman was a senior research fellow at the Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University, the Academic Adviser of the Program for the Study of Jews in Arab Lands in MDC, and a member of the advisory committee of the Coalition of Organizations of Jews from Arab and Islamic Countries. She wrote every year the chapter on antisemitism in the Arab World for the annual publication Antisemitism Worldwide of the Kantor Center at Tel Aviv University.

She was a member of the editorial boards of Moreshet, Journal for the Study of the Holocaust and Antisemitism, published in Hebrew and English, and of Antisemitism Studies, published by Indiana University Press.

Her research focused on Arab discourse analysis, particularly Arab antisemitism and Arab perceptions of the Holocaust. Webman was the head of the Zeev Vered Desk for Tolerance and Intolerance in the Middle East and the acting director of the Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Antisemitism and Racism. She edited several books, among them The Global Impact of a Myth – The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Her book, From Empathy to Denial: Arab Responses to the Holocaust, co-authored with Meir Litvak, was the recipient of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy's book prize for 2010.