SOLD OUT: Join the waitlist!

During the second half of the 1900s Israel served as the core of American Jewry's civil religion. But over the past twenty years the meaning of Israel in American Jewish life has changed, and for some younger Jews it has faded away. This class will discuss the changing significance of Israel for American Jews and will unpack the multiple meanings of the word "Zionism," which has connotations today that would have been unthinkable a century ago.

Derek Penslar is the William Lee Frost Professor of Jewish History. He is the director of undergraduate studies within the department and directs Harvard’s Center for Jewish Studies. Penslar is a resident faculty member at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies (CES) and is also affiliated with Harvard’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies. Before coming to Harvard, Penslar taught at Indiana University Bloomington, the University of Toronto, and the University of Oxford, where he was the inaugural holder of the Stanley Lewis Chair in Israel Studies. He has taught as a visiting professor at Columbia University, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, and the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS). He has held research fellowships in Germany, Israel, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Penslar is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the American Academy for Jewish Research and is an honorary fellow of St. Anne’s College, University of Oxford.