THE ISRAELI-AUSTRIAN AUTHOR AND HISTORIAN Doron Rabinovici was born in Tel Aviv in 1961. As a Jewish child of Vilna, Poland (now the capital of Lithuania), his mother miraculously survived the Nazi genocide, ultimately settling in Israel. His father, a Romanian Jew, fled to what was then Palestine, and it was in Israel that his parents met. At the age of three, Doron immigrated with his family to Vienna, which became their permanent place of residence.

Until 1985 Rabinovici's political focus was largely confined to the Israeli-Arab situation. He was a member of the Jewish youth movement and congregation (Kultusgemeinde), and his work included fostering efforts towards the return of the occupied territories. The group also confronted Austrian anti-Zionist sentiment by informing Austrians of leftist factions within Israel. With the emergence of Kurt Waldheim and an overtly anti-Semitic political platform, Rabinovici's concentration and efforts shifted to the domestic political arena. As he puts it: “One could say that Waldheim is the reason that I became an Austrian.”

Rabinovici was a founder of the leftist Club Neues Österreich (New Austria) and one of the leading organizers and public speakers of the February 2000 demonstrations. Attended by 300,000 people, these demonstrations took a stand against the popular racist and nationalist policies and rhetoric of Jörg Haider's extreme rightist Freedom Party (FPÖ). Rabinovici played and continues to play an active, vocal role as a political dissident, focusing particularly on combating the anti- Semitic elements of Austria's historical and cultural heritage. His present political foci include the recognition of and resistance to the current resurgence of racism, xenophobia, nationalism, and conservatism in countries of the European Union (EU).

During the years of his political activism, Rabinovici was a student at the University of Vienna. Originally a student of medicine, he also studied psychology, ethnology, and history. In 1986 history became his prime academic interest. In the early 1990s he began research on his dissertation on the controversial topic of the role of the Jewish Council in Vienna under the National Socialist extermination policies against the Jews. This work culminated in the historical treatise Instanzen der Ohnmacht. Wien 1938–1945; Der Weg zum Judenrat. The work maintains that the Jewish Council held no actual institutional power within National Socialist political and administrative structures, but was, rather, either a token agency or intentionally misinformed by Nazi functionaries.