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Faculty Profile

Derek J. Penslar is the Samuel Zacks Professor of Jewish History. His research specialties are the history of modern European Jewry, Zionism, and the state of Israel. His books include Zionism and Technocracy:  The Engineering of Jewish Settlement in Palestine, 1870-1918 (1991, Hebrew version 2001); In Search of Jewish Community: Jewish Identities in Germany and Austria, 1918-1933 (1998, co-edited with Michael Brenner), Shylock's Children: Economics and Jewish Identity in Modern Europe (2001); Orientalism and the Jews (co-edited with Ivan Kalmar, 2004), Contemporary Antisemitism: Canada and the World (2005), 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 Uniform Identities: Jews, War and the Military in Modern History (forthcoming from Princeton University Press). He is currently writing a biography of Theodor Herzl for Yale University Press' Jewish Lives series. Penslar is co-editor of two scholarly journals, Jewish Social Studies and of The Journal of Israeli History, and is an elected fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the American Academy for Jewish Research.