NEWS

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By Dee Reid
College of Arts and Science

CHAPEL HILL -- Stuart Eizenstat, the former deputy secretary of the treasury and an expert on Holocaust restitution issues, will discuss "Imperfect Justice: Looted Assets, Slave Labor and the Unfinished Business of World War II" during a free public lecture Feb. 4 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The first Kaplan-Brauer Lecture on the Contribution of Judaism to Civilization is set for 7:30 p.m. in the Union Auditorium at the Frank Porter Graham Student Union. The lecture series, sponsored by the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies, is made possible by a gift from Carolina alumni Bert Kaplan, Ellen Brauer Kaplan and Carolyn Brauer Hudson to honor family members.

Eli N. Evans, a 1958 Carolina graduate and chair of the center’s advisory board, will provide introductory remarks.

Eizenstat, a 1964 UNC graduate, will draw from his book, "Imperfect Justice," to address the political and cultural issues raised by the legal and diplomatic efforts to acquire more than $8 billion in Holocaust-related compensation from Swiss, German, Austrian and French companies.

Eizenstat held high-level positions during the last three Democratic presidencies and served on an advisory commission for the first Bush administration.

Besides being the Department of Treasury’s second-highest ranking official during the Clinton administration, Eizenstat also represented the president and the secretary of state on Holocaust issues.

He was under secretary of state (1997-99), winning a Distinguished Honor Award from Secretary Madeleine Albright, and under secretary of commerce (1996-97), establishing the first federal program to monitor foreign government compliance with trade agreements.

He also was U.S. ambassador to the European Union (1993-96), which brought him the Foreign Affairs Award for Public Service, the highest award to a non-career ambassador from then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher.

During the Carter administration, Eizenstat served as chief domestic policy adviser and executive director of the White House domestic policy staff (1977-81). He was Carter’s campaign director of issues and policy in 1976. Eizenstat also served as a White House aide on domestic policy issues during the Johnson administration.

From 1970 to 1976, Eizenstat was an attorney in Atlanta, the city where he was raised, and in 1968 he was research director for Hubert Humphrey’s presidential campaign.

Eizenstat earned a law degree from Harvard University in 1967.

He graduated from Carolina in 1964 with honors in political science and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa and the Order of the Old Well. He wrote for The Daily Tar Heel and also participated in the Hillel Foundation, Zeta Beta Tau fraternity, student government and the student attorney general’s office.

Eizenstat returned to Carolina in May 2000 to present the commencement address and receive an honorary degree. He is currently a partner in the law firm of Covington and Burling in Washington D.C.

The Carolina Center for Jewish Studies, based in the College of Arts and Sciences, was established a year ago to provide scholarly understanding of Judaism and the historic Jewish experience. The Center brings together scholars from a range of academic departments including English, Germanic languages, history, political science, religious studies, and Slavic languages and literatures.

Additional information is available on the web site of the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies at http://ccjs.unc.edu.

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Photo url: http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/event/lecture/eizenstat.jpg

Contacts: Dr. Jonathan Hess, director of the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies and professor of Germanic languages, phone 843-9160, email jmhess@email.unc.edu or Dee Reid in the College of Arts and Sciences, phone 843-6339, email deereid@unc.edu.