Eyal Handelsman Katz

Eyal graduated from UVA in 2025 with a PhD in English. At UVA, he was a graduate fellow in Jewish Studies, and member of the American Studies and Africana Studies certificate programs. Before coming to UVA, he attended the Universitat de València and was a Fulbright scholar at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. His dissertation project is a literary history that examines 20th c. ethnic American women writers' engagements with contemporary feminist and ethnic movements through their use of parental figures. In 2021, and with support from the Religion, Race & Democracy Lab, he completed Słabe Jajko: a documentary about his grandmother’s waning memories of the Holocaust.

Eyal is the first recipient of the Herbert Friedman Graduate Fund for Holocaust Studies. In this interview, he discusses his background in Holocaust Studies.