JUD NEWBORN, PhD is a New York-based dynamic multimedia lecturer and storyteller, as well as an author, museum curator and Emmy Award-winning producer. He is an expert on the Holocaust, antisemitism, extremism and the fight for democracy and human rights worldwide. A pioneer in the creation of Holocaust museums, Dr. Newborn served as Founding Historian and co-creator of New York’s Museum of Jewish Heritage. He has been honored by the Anne Frank Center USA with the prestigious Spirit of Anne Frank Human Writes Award, one of the highest honors in his field. Dr. Newborn has lectured and performed to acclaim at universities, religious institutions, conferences and other venues, ranging from San Diego’s Old Globe Theater and L.A.’s Simon Wiesenthal Center to the United Nations, and from Canada to Cape Town. (See lecture topics below.)Dr. Newborn was awarded his PhD with Distinction by the University of Chicago, following three years of fieldwork in Europe as a Fulbright and Woodrow Wilson National Fellow. His now classic book, Sophie Scholl and the White Rose, provides an inspiring account of a handful of courageous German university students—two former fanatical Hitler Youth leaders—who became the greatest heroes of the German anti-Nazi resistance, and icons of "Civil Courage" in Germany today.
Acclaimed by such publications as The New York Times, Newsweek International, Library Journal, Ha’aretz, The Times of London, and by Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel, the book was issued in 2018 in a 3rd, special 75th Anniversary Year edition (1943-2018), again in 2023 for the 80th Anniversary of the White Rose, and has many foreign editions. New endorsements attesting to its urgent relevance today, and that of Dr. Newborn’s accompanying multimedia lecture program, have come from famed scholars, human rights activists, leading actors and major institutions. These include, among others, The Simon Wiesenthal Center, Norman Lear, Peter Yarrow, Prof. Deborah Lipstadt, Academy Award Winner Joel Grey (Cabaret), Alan Alda, Prof. William Shulman, Germany's White Rose Foundation, and Dr. Michael Berenbaum, the former Founding Director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Dr. Newborn has written for numerous leading newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times, The Jerusalem Post and Smithsonian Magazine. He has appeared as a consultant throughout the media, from the CBS Morning News, CNN and other networks to NPR’s “All Things Considered.” During an adventurous career, Dr. Newborn hunted down former Nazis and SS officers to interview. He also volunteered to work briefly undercover for Poland's "Solidarity" freedom movement six months into the Communist Declaration of Martial Rule and the sealing of Poland's borders. In July 1995, at the height of the Balkans Crisis, Dr. Newborn broke a decades-long barrier by giving the first lecture on the Holocaust ever held at the United Nations, during which he called out against the UN's abandonment of Bosnian Muslims to mass murder. Today Jud Newborn is the Emmy Award-winning Producer of Special Guest Programs for Long Island's renowned Cinema Arts Centre, bringing in Nobel Laureates, Kennedy Center Honorees, and Academy Award, Tony, Emmy, Grammy and Pulitzer Prize winners to interview in special gala programs before live audiences.
