Alexander Kaye appointed as Director of the Schusterman Center
December 16, 2022
Dear Colleagues,
I am delighted to announce that Alexander Kaye, associate professor in the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, and the Karl, Harry, and Helen Stoll Chair of Israel Studies, has accepted the position of director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies. The Schusterman Center, founded in 2007, seeks to advance knowledge and understanding of the modern State of Israel through teaching and scholarship spanning Israeli history, politics, culture, and society.
Professor Kaye will become director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies on January 1, 2023. He succeeds University Professor Jonathan Sarna, whose firm direction during the Covid crisis led to an expansion in the Center’s national and international reach. During this time the Center introduced remote and hybrid programs, hosted the prestigious Fulbright-Hays Seminar - welcoming for the first time participants from the “Abraham Accord” countries to the Center’s flagship Summer Institute for Israel Studies - and launched the online Research Guide to Israel Studies, the most comprehensive guide of its kind.
Professor Kaye joined Brandeis in 2018 from The Ohio State University where, as assistant professor of history, he held the Saul and Sonia Schottenstein Chair in Israel Studies. His scholarship, which spans legal studies, religious studies and Israel Studies, draws on his training in the history of political thought and is complemented by expertise in rabbinical texts and legal theory. His first book, The Invention of Jewish Theocracy: The Struggle for Legal Authority in Modern Israel (Oxford University Press, 2020), received the Salo Baron Prize for best first book in the field of Jewish Studies from the American Academy of Jewish Research, and the Yeshiva University Leon Charney Book Award in Israel Studies. In 2021, he was co-recipient of the Association for Israel Studies’ Young Scholar Award; he currently serves as co-editor of The Journal of Israeli History: Politics, Society, Culture. His teaching and research profiles, as well as his leadership qualities, ensure that the Schusterman Center will continue to be in good hands during its next phase.
Please join me in congratulating Professor Kaye as he prepares to assume stewardship of this important center, and in thanking Jonathan Sarna for his exemplary leadership over recent years.
Sincerely,
Carol A. Fierke
Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs