Derek Jonathan Penslar is a Canadian historian

Historian

A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...

. He was raised in Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

, attended Stanford University

Stanford University

The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

 for his first degree, and then took his graduate degrees at the University of California at Berkeley, where his advisors were Richard Webster, Amos Funkenstein and Gerald Feldman. Penslar taught at Indiana University in Bloomington from 1987 to 1998, when he moved to Toronto

Toronto

Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

 to assume the Samuel J. Zacks Chair in Jewish History at the University of Toronto

University of Toronto

The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...

 (U of T). Between 2002 and 2008 he directed U of T's Centre for Jewish Studies.

In 2011, it was announced that he was to become the first Stanley Lewis professor of Israel studies

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

 at the University of Oxford

University of Oxford

The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

 in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, following a £3m donation. He will become a fellow of St Anne's College

St Anne's College

St Anne's College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Formerly a women's college, it has been coeducational since 1979 and now prides itself on being "a modern, forward-looking, intellectually ambitious college"...

.

Penslar's areas of research

Research

Research can be defined as the scientific search for knowledge, or as any systematic investigation, to establish novel facts, solve new or existing problems, prove new ideas, or develop new theories, usually using a scientific method...

 expertise include modern European Jewry, Zionism

Zionism

Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...

 and Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

. Historian Michael Berkowitz calls Penslar "one of the most trenchant [analysts] of how Zionism functioned on the ground in Palestine

Palestine

Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....

 in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries."

In 2011, he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada

Royal Society of Canada

The Royal Society of Canada , may also operate under the more descriptive name RSC: The Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada , is the oldest association of scientists and scholars in Canada...

.

Books

• Zionism and Technocracy: The Engineering of Jewish Settlement in Palestine, 1870-1918 (1991, Hebrew version 2001)

• In Search of Jewish Community: Jewish Identities in Germany and Austria, 1918-1933 (1998, co-edited with Michael Brenner)

• Shylock's Children: Economics and Jewish Identity in Modern Europe (2001)

• Orientalism and the Jews (co-edited with Ivan Kalmar
  Ivan Kalmar
  Ivan Davidson Kalmar is a Canadian Professor of anthropology. Born in Prague, his family soon moved to Komárno, and later to Bratislava. When he was seventeen, he left what was then Czechoslovakia, and eventually arrived in the United States. Kalmar's family settled down in Philadelphia, where he...
  
  , 2004)

• Contemporary Antisemitism: Canada and the World (2005)

• Israel in History: The Jewish State in Comparative Perspective (2006)

• Israël face à son passé, with Shlomo Sand, Avi Shlaïm, Les éditions arkhê, 2010, online = http://www.arkhe-editions.com