Derek Penslar

Derek Penslar is the William Lee Frost Professor of Jewish History and the Director of the Center for Jewish Studies at Harvard University. He previously taught at Oxford, where he was the inaugural holder of the Stanley Lewis Chair in Modern Israel Studies, and he is the Samuel Zacks Professor of Jewish History Emeritus at the University of Toronto. Penslar has published a dozen books, most recently Theodor Herzl: The Charismatic Leader (2020; German ed. 2022); and Zionism: An Emotional State (2023).  He is currently writing a book titled The War for Palestine, 1947-1949: A Global History. He is a past 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.