Simon Sibelman

Born and educated in Richmond, VA, Prof. Simon Sibelman received his BA from the University of Richmond where he majored in French and Russian with minors in history and art history. He taught French, Russian, and dramatic arts at the St. Christopher’s School for Boys in Richmond from 1971 through 1981 when he left to pursue his doctorate in London and Paris. His focus was on the impact of the Shoah on French literature, especially Franco-Jewish writers. His doctoral dissertation thesis was later published as his first book, Silence in the Novels of Elie Wiesel. He taught at the Sprio Institute for the Study of Jewish History and Culture, eventually also serving as the director of Adult Studies. Returning to the US in 1990, he taught until 2009 at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, where he was awarded the Distinguished Teaching Award (1992), the TRISS Endowed Chair for Humanities (1999–2009), and the John N. Rosebush University Professorship (2003). In 2009, he returned to Richmond to assume the position of assistant executive director of the Virginia Holocaust Museum and in 2011 as its executive director. In 2013 he assumed the position of director of the Center for Holocaust, Judaic, and Peace Studies and was named the first Leon Levine Distinguished Professorship. Upon retiring, he moved to Massachusetts where he is a freelance lecturer.