Decentering the 1948 Palestine War: From the Local to the Global with Derek Penslar, Harvard University

This talk links the Palestine Question with the formation of a new global political order after the Second World War. Between 1947 and 1949, debates about Palestine within the United Nations pulled dozens of countries directly into the determination of the land’s fate. A complex mixture of national interests and transnational sympathies shaped attitudes towards the partition of Palestine and the ensuing Arab-Israeli war. Throughout the world, high diplomacy was often in sync with public opinion. The war riveted the attention of the world – for reasons that still apply in our own day.

Derek Penslar is the William Lee Frost Professor of Jewish History and the Director of the Center for Jewish Studies at Harvard University. His books include Jews and the Military: A History (2013), 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 Society for Jewish Research, a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and an Honorary Fellow of St. Anne’s College, Oxford.

Website for More Info: https://jewishstudies.unc.edu/event/penslar/