Derek J. Penslar is the Samuel Zacks Professor of Jewish History at the University of Toronto and the Stanley Lewis Visiting Professor of Israel Studies at the University of Oxford. He recently joined the Harvard History Department as a visiting professor and in 2018 will assume the William Lee Frost Chair in Jewish History. Penslar's research specialties are the history of modern European Jewry, Zionism, and the state of Israel. Penslar’s books include Zionism and Technocracy: The Engineering of Jewish Settlement in Palestine, 1870-1918 (1991); Shylock’s Children: Economics and Jewish Identity in Modern Europe (2001); Orientalism and the Jews (co-edited with Ivan Kalmar, 2004); Israel in History: The Jewish State in Comparative Perspective (2006); The Origins of the State of Israel 1882-1948: A Documentary History (with Eran Kaplan, 2011); and Jews and the Military: A History (2013). Penslar is currently writing a biography of Theodor Herzl for Yale University Press’ Jewish Lives series and a book titled Zionism: An Emotional State, for Rutgers University Press’ series on Keywords in Jewish Studies.
Derek Penslar
Guest Speaker
Samuel Zacks Professor of Jewish History; University of Toronto; Stanley Lewis Visiting Professor of Israel Studies, University of Oxford; Visiting Professor, Department of History, Harvard University
