Robert Wistrich, the academic who led the battle against antisemitism, has died.

He suffered a heart attack in Rome on Tuesday night, where he was set to address the Italian Senate on rising antisemitism in Europe.

Prof Wistrich, who was the Neuburger Professor of European and Jewish history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the head of its Vidal Sassoon International Centre for the Study of Antisemitism, was 70.

He was born in the former Soviet Union in 1945. After the Second World War, his family moved to Poland, but then relocated to France and then England, when confronted with antisemitism.

Prof Wistrich, studied history at Queens’ College in Cambridge University before taking a doctorate at the University of London.

He took on a position at the Hebrew University after working as director at the Institute of Contemporary History and the Wiener Library and a research fellow of the British Academy.

Prof Wistrich once told the JC that Britain, unlike America, has never taken a long, hard look at its failure to save more Jewish lives.

SNAPSHOT

BORN: April 1945, Kazakhstan

EARLY LIFE: Came to Britain with his parents in 1948. Studied history at Cambridge and received a doctorate from University College London in 1974

CAREER: Director of research, Wiener Library until 1980. First holder of the chair of Jewish studies at UCL. Neuburger professor of European and Jewish history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem since 1989, and head of the university's Vidal Sassoon Centre for the Study of Antisemitism. Author of numerous books