Konstanty Gebert

Konstanty Gebert was born 1953 in Warsaw and graduated with a degree in psychology from Warsaw University in 1976. He is currently an international reporter and columnist with the leading Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza. Democratic opposition activist in the 1970s and underground journalist (as Dawid Warszawski) in the 1980s. Gerbert co-founded the underground Jewish Flying University and the Polish Jewish intellectual monthly Midrasz among others. He has served as a board member for the Einstein Forum, Potsdam; Paideia, Stockholm; and Dutch Jewish Humanitarian Fund, The Hague. Gebert has taught at Hebrew University, Jerusalem, UC Berkeley and the Grinnell College. Gerbert has authored eleven books in Polish, some translated into English, Italian, and Bosnian. His writing covers an array of topics including Poland’s round table negotiations of 1989, the Yugoslav wars, Israeli history, and commentaries on the Torah. His essays have been published in dozens of collections around the world and his articles have appeared in media worldwide. Most recent publications: “Poland: Living Apart,” in: Anders Jerichow and Cecilie Felicia Stockholm Banke (Eds): Pre-Genocide. Warnings and Responsibility to Protect, 2018; “Poland Since 1989 – Muddling Through, Wall to Wall;” in: Sabrina P. Ramet, Christine M. Hassenstab (Eds): Central and Southeast European Politics Since 1989, 2nd Edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2019. In 2018, he was recognized with the American Jewish Press Association Rockower Award.

Most recent publications: „Salvation and perdition – the Polish Jews’ Russian school of modernity and politics” [in Polish], in: Lidia Zessin-Jurek, Katharina Friedla (Ed.): Syberiada Żydów polskich. Losy uchodźców z Zagłady, Warszawa 2020, Żydowski Instytut Historyczny; “Poland, Israel and History” [in German], in Gisela Dachs (Ed.): Freundschaften, Feindschaften. Essays., Berlin 2020, Suhrkamp.

Updated May 2021