David Menashri, PhD
David Menashri, Professor Emeritus Tel Aviv University (TAU), is Founding Director of the Alliance Center for Iranian Studies at TAU and Senior Researcher at the Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at TAU. In Fall 2017, he is the Israel Institute Visiting Professor at the UCLA Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies and teaches the course “Iran and Israel in a Changing Middle East.” This is Menashri’s second time serving as an Israel Institute Visiting Professor with the Center. In the 2016 Winter and Spring quarters, he taught courses on Iran-Israel relations and the modern history of Iran.
The Professor Emeritus founded and was the first Director of the Alliance Center for Iranian Studies, the first of its kind in Israel (2005-2010), and the first Incumbent of the Parviz and Pouran Nazarian Chair for Modern Iranian Studies (1997-2011). He chaired the Department of Middle Eastern and African History (1996-2000) and was Dean for Special Programs (2001-2010) at Tel Aviv University. Following his retirement from TAU, he has served as President of the College of Law in Ramat Gan, Israel (2011-215).
Prof. Menashri’s main field of academic research is religion, society, and politics in modern Iran; Islamic Radicalism (with focus on Shi’i Islam); the Persian Gulf; and the history of education in the Muslim world. He has authored and edited more than ten books and published numerous articles on Iran and the Middle East.
He has been a visiting Fulbright scholar at Princeton (1984-85) and Cornell University (1985-86). He also served as a Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago (1989-90) and as a Visiting Fellow at Yale, Oxford, Melbourne and Monash Universities (Australia), the Universities of Munich and Mainz (Germany) and Waseda (Tokyo). In the late 1970s, Menashri spent two years conducting research and field studies in Iranian universities on the eve of the Islamic Revolution with a grant from the Ford Foundation.
Prof. Menashri is active in numerous NGOs in Israel and abroad. He is member of the International Council of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs (which received the 1995 Nobel Prize Peace), Board Member of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, and Chairman (since 1995) of the Maccabim Foundation for Scholarships. He was also Chairman of the International Sephardic Education Fund (ISEF) in Israel (1996-2006) and President of the Iranian Jewish Federation in Israel (1982-1992).
Menashri’s books include: Post-Revolutionary Politics in Iran: Religion, Society and Power; Iran after Khomeini: Revolutionary Ideology versus National Interests (Hebrew); Revolution at A Crossroads: Iran’s Domestic Challenges and Regional Ambitions; Iran: Between Islam and the West (Hebrew); Education and the Making of Modern Iran; Iran: A Decade of War and Revolution; and Iran in Revolution (Hebrew). He is also the editor of Iran: Anatomy of Revolution (together with Liora Hendelman-Baavur, 2009, Hebrew); Religion and State in the Middle East (Hebrew); Central Asia Meets the Middle East; Islamic Fundamentalism: A Challenge to Regional Stability (Hebrew); and The Iranian Revolution and the Muslim World. He is also the author of numerous articles on Iran and the Middle East. Between 1978 and 1999 he wrote all the 22 annual chapters on Iran in the Moshe Dayan’s yearbook The Middle East Contemporary Survey.