David Dean Shulman

David Dean Shulman was born in 1949 in Waterloo

David Dean Shulman was born on January 13, 1949, in Waterloo, Iowa, where he grew up. After finishing high school there in 1967, he won a National Merit Scholarship and moved to Israel.

He studied Islamic history and Arabic at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and earned his B.A. in 1971. He then wrote a doctorate in Tamil and Sanskrit at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, with field work in Tamil Nadu, and received it in 1976.

He served in the Israel Defense Forces and was called up for the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. The medic skills he learned in the army later helped him treat injured Palestinians.

In 1976 he began teaching Indian studies and comparative religion at the Hebrew University, and he became a full professor in 1985. He joined the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities in 1988 and directed the Jerusalem Institute of Advanced Studies from 1992 to 1998. His work covers Tamil, Sanskrit and Telugu literature, Tamil Islam and the history of religion, and he has translated classical texts.

Shulman published his first poetry book in Hebrew in 1974. He is a founder of the Israeli-Palestinian movement Ta'ayush and helps Palestinians in the South Hebron Hills, where settlers attacked him several times. He received the Israel Prize in 2016 and gave the prize money to Ta'ayush.