MEDIA ADVISORY
Scholars at New York University’s Taub Center for Israel Studies, one of the few university-based research centers dedicated to the study of modern Israel and its recent history, society, and politics, are available for comment for stories on the nation as it approaches its 60th anniversary.
Reporters interested in speaking with the below NYU experts should contact James Devitt, NYU’s Office of Public Affairs, at 212.998.6808 or james.devitt@nyu.edu.
The Taub Center’s director is historian Ronald Zweig, whose published works include: Britain and Palestine During the Second World War; German Reparations and the Jewish World; and The Gold Train: The Destruction of the Jews and the Looting of Hungary. He has also edited David Ben-Gurion: Political Leadership in Israel and co-edited Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver: A Study in American Zionism.
In addition, the Center and NYU’s Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies have a range of other experts whose work addresses Israel and its formation:
- David Engel, the Maurice R. and Corinne P. Greenberg Professor of Holocaust Studies, whose works include: Between Liberation and Flight: Holocaust Survivors in Poland and the Struggle for Leadership, 1944-1946; Facing a Holocaust: The Polish Government-in-Exile and the Jews, 1943-1945; and In the Shadow of Auschwitz: The Polish Government-in-Exile and the Jews, 1939-1942
- Lawrence Schiffman, Ethel and Irvin A. Edelman Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies and chair of the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, who has authored Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls; From Text to Tradition, A History of Judaism in Second Temple and Rabbinic Times; Who Was a Jew? Rabbinic and Halakhic Perspectives on the Jewish-Christian Schism; and Sectarian Law in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Courts, Testimony, and the Penal Code, among other works
Other NYU experts include Rakefet Zalashik, a postdoctoral fellow whose research focuses on identity formation, immigrant absorption, and the integration of Holocaust survivors into Israeli society.
The Taub Center was established with a gift from the Henry and Marilyn Taub Foundation. The gift supports an endowed professorship and two graduate fellowships in Israel Studies, and funds lectures, seminars, scholarly colloquia at the Center, and other special programs for students, faculty, and the community. In addition to offering its own programming, the Taub Center works closely with NYU’s departments to create cross-disciplinary programming, serving to broaden NYU’s offerings in Judaic and Middle Eastern studies. For more, go to http://hebrewjudaic.as.nyu.edu/page/taub