Selwyn Ilan Troen is an Israel

Israel

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

i scholar. He is the Karl, Harry and Helen Stoll Professor of Israel Studies at Brandeis University

Brandeis University

Brandeis University is an American private research university with a liberal arts focus. It is located in the southwestern corner of Waltham, Massachusetts, nine miles west of Boston. The University has an enrollment of approximately 3,200 undergraduate and 2,100 graduate students. In 2011, it...

. He is a graduate of Brandeis, with an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago

University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

. Troen grew up in the Boston

Boston

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

, Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

 area, but he moved to Israel as a young man.

When he joined the Brandeis faculty, the university announced that it was creating a chair in Israel Studies in order "to develop an accurate historical understanding of the origin and development of the state of Israel and its place in the world."

Troen believes that Israel's secular culture "has drawn from two important traditions: the prophetic tradition within Judaism

Judaism

Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...

 and universal values generated by an enlightenment society."

Troen is a founder of the journal Israel Studies

Israel Studies

Israel Studies is a multidisciplinary academic journal covering the history, politics, society and culture of the modern state of Israel....

.

Books and publications

• Troen, Selwyn K. and Jacob Lassner. Jews and Muslims in the Arab World; Haunted by Pasts Real and Imagined. 2007 ed. Lanham and New York: Roman and Littlefield, 2007.
• Troen, Selwyn K. "Israel Studies." Israel Studies 12. 3 issues annually (2007): 600 pages.
• Troen, Selwyn K. Imagining Zion: Dreams, Designs, and Realities in a Century of Jewish Settlement. Yale University Press, 2003.
• Troen, Selwyn K. and D.D. Moore. Divergent Jewish Cultures: America and Israel. Yale University Press, 2001.
• Troen, Selwyn K., ed. Jewish Centers and Peripheries; Europe between America and Israel Fifty Years After World War II. Transaction: New Brunswick and London, 1999.
• Troen, Selwyn K. and Noah Lucas, ed. Israel: The First Decade of Independence. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995.
• Troen, S. Ilan and Klaus Bade, ed. Zuwanderung und Eingliederung von Deutschen und Juden aus der fruheren Sowjetunion in Deutschland und Israel. Bonn: Bundeszentrale dur politische Bildung, 1993.
• Troen, Selwyn K. and Moshe Shemesh, ed. The Suez-Sinai Crisis 1956; Retrospective and Reappraisal. London and New York: Frank Cass and Columbia University Press, 1990.
• Troen, Selwyn K. and Benjamin Pinkus, ed. Organizing Rescue: National Jewish Solidarity in the Modern Period. London: Frank Cass, 1988.
• Troen, Selwyn K. and Glenn Holt, S. Thernstrom and T. Hareven. St. Louis. New York: Franklin Watts - New Viewpoints, 1977.
• Troen, Selwyn K. The Public and the Schools: Shaping the Saint Louis System 1838-1920. University of Missouri Press, 1975.