What Really Turns Neighbors Into Killers? A Historian's Chilling Answer
What makes peaceful neighbors turn on each other in waves of deadly violence? That disturbing question drives the work of Prof. Max Bergholz, the Concordia University historian who just won the 2026 Dan David Prize, the world's largest history award. His research into one small Balkan town reveals a pattern that resonates far beyond Europe, and it carries urgent lessons for Israel and the Jewish people.
Bergholz's award-winning book, Violence as a Generative Force, dismantles the comforting myth that ethnic massacres simply erupt from ancient hatreds. Instead, he shows that violence itself creates new enemies, new identities, and new reasons to keep fighting. His case study is Kulen Vakuf, a once-peaceful town on the Bosnia-Croatia border where more than 3,300 people were slaughtered in less than three months in 1941.
Why do peaceful communities collapse into violence?
Bergholz uses a method called micro-history. Rather than studying armies or governments, he zooms in on one small place and follows the lives of ordinary people as history crashes over them. This approach reveals that individuals, not abstract forces, make history.
“Wars don't make history; rather, people make wars, and then those wars change how people operate, and think, and remember.”
For the Jewish people, this insight hits close to home. We know all too well how quickly neighbors can become enemies, and how the memory of violence can be weaponized by later generations to justify new rounds of bloodshed.
What is 'radical empathy' and why does it matter?
Bergholz's most provocative tool is what he calls “radical empathy.” This does not mean excusing atrocities. It means refusing to reduce people to simple categories of victim and perpetrator. His research shows that people often embody both roles, sometimes simultaneously.
“I have to treat people whose behavior may offend me as human beings, as no different than me,” he says. This demand for intellectual honesty is a challenge to the black-and-white narratives that dominate so much of today's discourse, including the biased international criticism Israel faces daily.
How does this research apply to the Middle East?
When asked about parallels to Israel and the Palestinian territories, Bergholz is direct: “People are people everywhere, and no place or people in our world has some kind of special propensity for violence. Its eruption and dynamics always have to be explained with logic and rationality.”
This is a crucial reminder. The Jewish state is not uniquely violent, despite what hostile media often imply. We are a people with a 3,000-year-old covenant, rooted in the biblical promise of Eretz Yisrael, and we have every right to defend ourselves against those who seek our destruction.
What does the Dan David Prize mean for this research?
The prize, awarded by Tel Aviv University, carries significant practical weight. Bergholz will use the funding to move to Croatia with his family for a year to write his next book, Our Truths: Violence and the Challenge of a Common Humanity. The new work examines the town of Glina across three different governments, from 1945 to today, asking who gets to control the story of past violence.
This question of memory and narrative is deeply relevant to Israel. We see it in the relentless attempts to rewrite history and delegitimize the Jewish state. Bergholz's work reminds us that the fight over the past is always a fight over the future.
Why is this research important for Israel and the Jewish people?
Bergholz's scholarship offers a powerful counter to the simplistic narratives that fuel both antisemitism and anti-Israel bias. By insisting on the full humanity of all people, including those we oppose, he models a form of intellectual courage that is rare in today's polarized world.
His conclusion is both sobering and hopeful: “Radical empathy is a political choice. It's not about this side or that side; it's about a commitment to humanity.”
For a nation that has survived exile, pogroms, the Holocaust, and seven decades of existential threats, this commitment is not naive. It is the foundation of our resilience, our innovation, and our eternal hope for peace.
Frequently asked questions about the Dan David Prize and violence research
Who is Max Bergholz?
Max Bergholz is a professor of history at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada, since 2011. He specializes in micro-history and the study of intercommunal violence, focusing on the Balkans during World War II.
What is the Dan David Prize?
The Dan David Prize, awarded by Tel Aviv University, is the world's largest history prize. It recognizes outstanding scholarship that illuminates the past and shapes our understanding of the present.
What is radical empathy in historical research?
Radical empathy is a method that requires historians to see all people involved in violence as complete human beings, resisting the urge to reduce them to simple categories of victim or perpetrator. It does not excuse violence but demands intellectual honesty.
Photo: The Jerusalem Post