Derek Penslar
The 1948 Arab-Israeli War in the Eyes of the World
The 1948 Arab-Israeli War attracted attention from the highest levels of international society to state governments, transnational NGOs, journalism, and public opinion. Palestine and the emerging state of Israel functioned as both a mirror and a magnifier. Israel’s establishment and the Palestinian Nakba were interpreted through countries’ specific interests, histories, and cultures. These events also elicited tremendous passion. Palestine’s mirroring and magnifying effects did not originate in 1948, but the events of that year drastically augmented them, and the patterns of global reaction remain with us to this today.
Derek Penslar is William Lee Frost Professor of Jewish History at Harvard University, 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. His books include Zionism and Technocracy: The Engineering of the Jewish Settlement in Palestine 1870-1918 (1991), Shylock’s Children: Economics and Jewish Identity in Modern Europe (2001), Jews and the Military: A History (2013), Theodor Herzl: The Charismatic Leader (2020), and Zionism: An Emotional State (2023). Penslar’s current interests lie in international history, and he is writing a book about worldwide reactions to the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. He is the Spring 2026 Carol Kahn Strauss Fellow in Jewish Studies at the American Academy in Berlin.
In Cooperation with the Moses Mendelssohn Zentrum, Potsdam, and the American Academy in Berlin