It is always important when an historian chooses to tackle an issue rooted in the past but whose impact continues to make waves of tsunami proportion in the present. Few documents better fit that description than the notorious forgery, The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.
In a new book, License to Murder: The Enduring Threat of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, (Balfour Books and the America-Israel Friendship League), Dr. Alex Grobman examines the “Protocols” and tracks the 100 years of its sordid influence. A prolific author of works ranging from Holocaust studies to advocacy for the State of Israel, Dr. Grobman, whose doctorate is in Contemporary Jewish History from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, is in a unique position to confront the enigma and the impact of the Protocols. A member of the academic board of the David S Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, he established and directed the first Holocaust center in the United States under the auspices of a Jewish Federation in St Louis, Missouri and also served as director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, where he was the founding editor-in-chief of the Simon Wiesenthal Annual, the first serial publication in the US focusing on the scholarly study of the Holocaust.