Alexander Kaye

Karl, Harry, and Helen Stoll Associate Professor of Israel Studies

Departments/Programs

Near Eastern and Judaic Studies

Degrees

Columbia University, Ph.D.
University of Cambridge, M.Phil.
University of Cambridge, B.A.

Expertise

Israel Studies, Jewish thought, intellectual history, the history of political thought, legal history, secularism and modernity

Profile

My research deals in the history of Jewish thought, with a special focus on political thought, the history of law and theories of Jewish modernity. I am also an expert in Israel Studies and my research in the history of Israel focuses on the relationship between law, religion and politics, and in particular in the history of religious Zionism.
My latest book is "The Invention of Jewish Theocracy" (Oxford University Press, 2020).
I also have an interest in Jewish historiography. Together with David N. Myers, I edited the collected works of one of the last century's leading Jewish historians in: Myers, David N., and Alexander Kaye, eds. The Faith of Fallen Jews: Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi and the Writing of Jewish History. UPNE, 2013.

Courses Taught

NEJS	35a	History of the Jews from 1492 to the Present
NEJS	123a	Maps, Graphs and Timelines: Technology and Design in Historical Research
NEJS	145a	History of the State of Israel
NEJS	160b	Legal Controversies in Israeli History
NEJS	189a	The Arab-Israeli Conflict
NEJS	191b	The World to Come: Jewish Messianism from Antiquity to Zionism
NEJS	236a	Seminar on Modern Jewish and Israeli History and Historiography
NEJS	255b	Jews in Western Political Thought

Awards and Honors

Fellow, The Kogod Research Center the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America (2020)

Karl, Harry, and Helen Stoll Chair of Israel Studies (2019)

Teaching Innovation General Education Grant (2018)

Scholarship

Kaye, Alexander. "Foreword to the English Edition." Transmitting Jewish History by Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, and Sylvie Anne Goldberg. Brandeis University Press, 2021. not yet known. (forthcoming)

Kaye, Alexander. "Review." Rev. of My Struggle for Peace: The Diary of Moshe Sharett, 1953–1956, by Moshe Sharett. The Middle East Journal vol. 74 of 1 2021: 148-150.

Kaye, Alexander. "Commentary on Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, _Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory_, 1982." The New Jewish Canon: Ideas & Debates 1980-201. Ed. Yehuda Kurtzer and Claire E. Sufrin. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2020. 131–34.

Kaye, Alexander. "Or La-Goyim’: From Diaspora Theology to Zionist Dogma." Journal of Israeli History 38. 1 (2020): 191-211.

Kaye, Alexander. The Invention of Jewish Theocracy: The Struggle for Legal Authority in Modern Israel. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020.

Kaye, Alexander. "Review." Rev. of efining Israel: The Jewish State, Democracy, and the Law, by Simon Rabinovitch, Ed. Contemporary Jewry vol. 39 of 3 2019: 543-546.