Zoom & in person

Derek Penslar is the William Lee Frost Professor of Jewish History at Harvard. He takes a comparative and transnational approach to Jewish history, which he studies within the contexts of modern capitalism, nationalism, and colonialism. Penslar’s books include , Israel in History: The Jewish State in Comparative Perspective (2006), The Origins of the State of Israel: A Documentary History (with Eran Kaplan, 2011), and Theodor Herzl: The Charismatic Leader(2020). He is currently writing a book titled Zionism: An Emotional State and is beginning work on a global history of the 1948 Palestine War. Penslar is President of the American Academy for Jewish Research, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and an Honorary Fellow of St. Anne’s College, Oxford. At Harvard, Penslar is a resident faculty member at The Center for European Studies and the PhD track’s director of graduate studies in The Center for Middle Eastern Studies.

This event is sponsored by HBT’s Tikkun Olam committee