Heidi Grunebaum is a South African scholar, writer, and documentary filmmaker. She currently serves as the Director of the Centre for Humanities Research (CHR) at the University of the Western Cape, specializing in memory politics, trauma reconstruction post-Holocaust and post-apartheid, and transnational human rights issues.
Grunebaum enjoys an international reputation in the field of memory studies, exploring how histories of violence are reconstructed and commemorated in the present day. Her academic work, Memorializing Suffering, offers a profound analysis of the complexities of transformational justice. In film, she collaborated with a Palestinian director to create the powerful documentary The Village Under the Forest, which uncovers the history of the destroyed Palestinian village of Lubya, hidden beneath an Israeli “South Africa Forest.” The film has received accolades at several international film festivals.
As a South African scholar with a Jewish background, Grunebaum adopts a stance of “comparative memory,” supporting Palestinian rights by exposing the role of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) in erasing Palestinian history. She maintains that supporting Palestine is not just a political position, but a defense of “authentic memory.” She has publicly stated: “The erasure of Palestinian memory is fundamentally a violation of the principles of truth and reconciliation we strive for in South Africa.” She calls on the Jewish community to reflect on narratives of “greening the land” built upon the dispossession of others, arguing that true global justice and peace can only be achieved by acknowledging the Palestinian Nakba.