Professor Rosemary Horowitz, co-director of Appalachian State University’s Center for Judaic, Holocaust, and Peace Studies, passed away in Boone on August 7, 2021. She was 68.
The daughter of Holocaust survivors, Prof. Horowitz earned her doctorate at the University of Massachusetts with a dissertation on Yizkor Books, which are community memorials published in the wake of the Holocaust. She joined the Appalachian faculty in 1995. A scholar of the Holocaust and East European Jewry, she also collaborated with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC and the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York. A contributor to scholarly journals, she edited the anthologies Elie Wiesel and the Art of Storytelling, Memorial Books of Eastern European Jewry: Essays on the History and Meanings of Yizker Volumes, and Women Writers of Yiddish Literature (all McFarland Press). She participated in Jewish studies symposia and conferences both locally and internationally.
Dr. Horowitz was instrumental in creating Appalachian’s Center for Judaic, Holocaust, and Peace Studies and served as its co-director from 2006-2013. Always ready to defend Israel and confront anti-Semitism, she served the North Carolina Council on the Holocaust as a speaker and board member. Memorably, she helped lead efforts to bring Elie Wiesel to campus.
Former co-director at the Center, Rennie Brantz, now Boone mayor, recalled, “Her scholarship, commitment, and academic leadership shaped the character and quality of the Center. She will always be an important part of our Center community.”
Dr. Horowitz was a much-esteemed campus and community presence. She was an active member of the Boone Jewish Community’s Havurah and in the Sisterhood of The Temple of the High Country. She helped underwrite and served as academic advisor to AEPi, the campus’ first Jewish fraternity and supported the campus Hillel.
