Zimmerman graduated from the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1989 with a Bachelor(Honours) in History, and with the Master of Arts In February 1998 he completed his Doctor of Philosophy thesis in Comparative History at Brandeis University, and in the summer 2004 was appointed to the position of Associate Professor of History at Yeshiva University in New York City.
He is the author of The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939-1945 by Cambridge University Press (2015, hardback) and of Contested Memories. Poles and Jews during the Holocaust and Its Aftermath by Rutgers University Press (2003, hardcover) as well as Poles, Jews and the Politics of Nationality: The Jewish Labor Bund and the Polish Socialist Party in Late Czarist Russia, 1892–1914. in History from University of California, Los Angeles in 1993. Zimmerman is an American author proficient in Yiddish, Polish, Hebrew, Russian, and French.
In the spirit of detached scholarly inquiry, these essays fearlessly challenge commonly held views on both sides of the debates.
Among the contributing writers to Contested Memories are some notable scholars of the Holocaust as well as professors of leading universities including Zvi Gitelman, Nechama Tec, Israel Gutman, Henry Abramson, Samuel Kassow, Dariusz Stola, David Engel, Stanisław Krajewski, Feliks Tych, Gunnar South. Paulsson, and Michael C. Steinlauf.
Is the first attempt since the fall of Communism to reassess the existing historiography of Polish-Jewish relations just before, during, and after the Second World War.
