Caroline Kahlenberg offers historical perspectives on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict

We are excited to announce that historian Caroline Kahlenberg will join us this fall to begin a three-year position as the Israel Institute Visiting Assistant Professor of History, thanks to a generous grant from the Israel Institute in Washington, DC. Currently completing her Ph.D. at Harvard University, Caroline Kahlenberg is a scholar of Middle Eastern and Jewish cultural and social history, as well as gender and sexuality. Her dissertation research explores how modern Jewish and Arab national identities emerged in the context of early twentieth-century Palestine and the broader Eastern Mediterranean.

Kahlenberg's work has been supported by a number of fellowships and awards, including from the Posen Foundation, the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, and the Council of American Overseas Research Centers. Her publications include the following articles: "The Star of David in a Cedar Tree: Jewish Students and Zionism at the American University of Beirut (1908–1948), Middle Eastern Studies (2019) and "The Tarbush Transformation: Oriental Jewish Men and the Significance of Headgear in Ottoman and British Mandate Palestine," Journal of Social History (2018).

At UVA she will offer courses in Israeli and Palestinian history, including a fall 2021 course on the 1948 war. She will also curate public-facing programs for the UVA community about the Middle East and contemporary questions of co-existence and conflict in Israel and Palestine.