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Dalia Ofer

Dalia Ofer is an Israeli historian of the Holocaust and professor emerita at the Institute of Contemporary Jewry of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

born 1939Research on illegal immigrationHolocaust memory in IsraelHeading the Institute of Contemporary Jewry

Born: 8 January 1939, Jerusalem
Occupation: intellectual, sociologist, historian, historian of the Holocaust
Education: Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Dalia Ofer was born in 1939 in Jerusalem

Dalia Ofer was born in Jerusalem in 1939 and grew up there. Her father, Arie Zeev Steinbrecher, was born in Galicia and came to the Land of Israel in 1933. Her mother, Rachel Schumacher, was born in Latvia and arrived in 1934.

She finished the Hebrew University High School in 1956 and served in the Nahal at Kibbutz Ein Gev. She studied history at the Hebrew University, earning a B.A. in 1962 and a teaching certificate the following year. Her M.A. thesis dealt with the Yishuv delegation in Istanbul, and her 1981 Ph.D. examined illegal immigration to Palestine.

She taught for many years at the Hebrew University High School. She became a lecturer at the Hebrew University in 1983 and a full professor in 2000, and headed the Institute of Contemporary Jewry from 2004 to 2007. She also headed the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism and held visiting posts at universities abroad.

Her research covers illegal immigration during the Holocaust, mass immigration to Israel, Holocaust memory in Israel and Jewish life in East European ghettos. Her first book won the Yad Ben-Zvi Award in 1992. She retired in 2008, lives in Ramot in Jerusalem, and was married to economist Gur Ofer until his death in 2022.