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The College of Humanities and Fine Arts (HFA) has announced the appointment of Hannah Pollin-Galay as the Pen Tishkach Chair of Holocaust Studies and director of the Institute for Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies (IHGMS), effective Sept. 1, 2025. She will also join the faculty with a joint appointment in the Department of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies and the Department of History.

Pen tishkach – Hebrew for “lest you forget” – is the guiding principle behind the anonymously endowed chair, which is awarded to a distinguished scholar of the Holocaust who serves as IHGMS director.

Pollin-Galay comes to UMass Amherst from Tel Aviv University, where she has served as head of the Jona Goldrich Institute for Yiddish Language, Literature and Culture since 2020. Her scholarship focuses on East European Jewish Holocaust experiences, integrating methods from both history and literature. 

“At a time of increased Holocaust denialism, authoritarianism, as well as mass atrocities around the world, the work of the IHGMS is more critical than ever,” Pollin-Galay says. “Inspired by the achievements of Professor James Young and Professor Alon Confino, I am committed to leading programs that stimulate rigorous scholarship, curiosity, creativity and public dialogue. My goal is to make the Institute a source of light, using education to build a more informed and compassionate public square.”

“As founding director of the Institute for Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies at UMass Amherst, I’m thrilled to be succeeded by Hannah Pollin-Galay,” says Young, distinguished professor emeritus of English and Near Eastern studies. “She is arguably the leading Holocaust memory scholar of her generation and a stellar teacher in the classroom, with her cutting-edge work in Holocaust testimony and Yiddish studies defining the future of Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies.”

“Hannah Pollin-Galay brings an extraordinary depth of scholarship and a strong commitment to public engagement,” HFA Dean Maria del Guadalupe Davidson says. “Her interdisciplinary approach and global perspective make her an ideal leader for the Institute at this critical moment. We are honored and excited to welcome her to UMass Amherst.” 

“I am delighted to welcome Professor Pollin-Galay to UMass Amherst,” adds Mike Malone, vice chancellor for research and engagement. “Dr. Pollin-Galay’s academic accomplishments, vision, and creativity are an ideal fit for this role, and I look forward to a bright future for the IHGMS.”

Pollin-Galay’s first book, “Ecologies of Witnessing: Language, Place and Holocaust Testimony” (Yale University Press, 2018), investigates how language and geopolitical context inform the memories of individual Holocaust survivors, focusing on survivors from Lithuania as a test case. Her second book, “Occupied Words: What the Holocaust Did to Yiddish” (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2024), explores how the Holocaust changed the Yiddish language and was awarded a National Jewish Book Award in the category of Holocaust. 

She is currently working on a project exploring the fraught connections between Jews and non-human nature, with a focus on the Holocaust era. For the 2024-25 academic year, she is a senior scholar at the Fortunoff Archive for Holocaust Testimony at Yale University and a translation fellow at the National Yiddish Book Center.