The perspective of Second Generation Survivors on the crucial testimony of the Holocaust generation is outlined, along with the unverbalized taboos (sacred cows) about the victims. R. Kivelevitz points out that personal histories are crucial to survivors and their families despite the subjective nature of anecdotal narratives, arguing that anecdotes are ideal in allowing the catharsis of painful experiences. Taking the position of witness psychology, Prof. Juni describes the creative, fill-in-the-blanks process which characterize all retrospective memories as he presents the contemporary forensic maxims which eschew the reliability of the testimony of witnesses to crime. Based in his clinical work with trauma patients, Dr. Juni is emphatic that the accuracy of victim testimony in traumatic contexts is close to zero. R. Kivelevitz adds that all of the Holocaust survivors who had remained alive in the last decade were probably limited in what they could recall correctly since they were quite young during the war years. Juni argues that the only reliable Holocaust data are those collected during the war by government agencies – especially those by the actual perpetrators, while also lending credence to hard data collected by individual researchers and organizations active during the Holocaust. R. Kivelevitz suggests that the testimony of survivors who were hidden, and therefore subjected to less traumatic experiences than those interred, may be more accurate than those who were in camps. 

Prof. Juni takes a very skeptical position about the testimonies concerning righteous gentiles, by questioning the accuracy of such categorizations. He argues that many of these “righteous” gentiles we hardly motivated by true positive values. Juni also believes that the celebration of the humane acts of these individuals threatens to obfuscate the reality that most of the European gentile populace gladly participated in informing on hidden Jews and ensured their horrible plight. Reacting to this broad negative brushstroke which paints humanity so negatively, R. Kivelevitz exception to Juni’s position, arguing that the callous behavior of some represents an aberration of the basic prosocial nature of human beings rather than defining the nature of people across the board.

Juni elaborates the crucial relevance of survivor guilt to the experience of holocaust survivors. Victims usually felt complicit when they survive traumatic events. Excepting the minority of incidents of actual collaboration, this guilt is often anchored in beliefs among victims who attempted to ingratiate themselves with their tormentors and tried to evoke their sympathy instead of standing up in defiance and pride regardless of the consequences. In this vein, Juni explains that survival guilt distortion of memories as a defensive adaptation which helps victims avoid their self-accusatory inner demons.

Prof. Juni is one of the foremost research psychologists in the world today. He has published ground-breaking original research in seventy different peer reviewed journals and is cited continuously with respect by colleagues and experts in the field who have built on his theories and observations.

He studied in Yeshivas Chaim Berlin under Rav Yitzchack Hutner, and in Yeshiva University as a Talmid of Rav Joseph Dov Soloveitchick. Dr. Juni is a board member of the Association of Orthodox Jewish Scientists and has regularly presented addresses to captivated audiences. Associated with NYU since 1979, Juni has served as Director of MA and PhD programs, all the while heading teams engaged in cutting-edge research. Professor Juni's scholarship on aberrant behavior across the cultural, ethnic, and religious spectrum is founded on psychometric methodology and based on a psychodynamic psychopathology perspective. He is arguably the preeminent expert in Differential Diagnostics, with each of his myriad studies entailing parallel efforts in theory construction and empirical data collection from normative and clinical populations.

Professor Juni created and directed the NYU Graduate Program in Tel Aviv titled Cross-Cultural Group Dynamics in Stressful Environments. Based in Yerushalayim, he collaborates with Israeli academic and mental health specialists in the study of dissonant factors and tensions in the Arab-Israeli conflict and those within the Orthodox Jewish community, while exploring personality challenges of second-generation Holocaust survivors.

Below is a partial list of the journals to which Professor Juni has contributed over 120 article (many are available online): Journal of Forensic Psychology; Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment, and Trauma; International Review of Victimology; The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease; International Forum of Psychoanalysis; Journal of Personality Assessment; Journal of Abnormal Psychology; Journal of Psychoanalytic Anthropology; Psychophysiology; Psychology and Human Development; Journal of Sex Research; Journal of Psychology and Judaism; Contemporary Family Therapy; American Journal on Addictions; Journal of Criminal Psychology; Mental Health, Religion, and Culture.

As Rosh Beis Medrash, Rabbi Avraham Kivelevitz serves as Rav and Posek for the morning minyan at IDT. Hundreds of listeners around the globe look forward to his weekly Shiur in Tshuvos and Poskim. Rav Kivelevitz is a Maggid Shiur for Dirshu International in Talmud and Halacha as well as a Dayan with the Beth Din of America.