Scienceישראל גרשוני

Israel Gershoni

Israel Gershoni is an Israeli historian of the modern Middle East and professor emeritus at Tel Aviv University, known for his research on national identity in Egypt.

born 1946Research on Egyptian national identityMiddle East intellectual historyThe 2007 Landau Prize

Born: 11 October 1946, Hulata
Occupation: historian, orientalist, professor, university teacher
Education: Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Israel Gershoni was born in 1946 in Hulata

Israel Gershoni was born on October 11, 1946, and grew up on Kibbutz Hulata, where he went to school. His father came to Israel from Sanaa in Yemen in 1929 and helped found Hulata in 1936. His mother was born in Poland in 1918.

He served as an officer in the Golani reconnaissance unit. He fought in the Six-Day War in the Golan Heights and the West Bank.

He studied the history of Islamic lands at the Hebrew University from 1969 to 1977. He submitted his doctorate on national identity in Egypt in 1977.

He taught at the University of Haifa from 1976 to 1978 and at Tel Aviv University from 1978. He became a full professor in 1994 and retired as professor emeritus in 2014. His research focuses on modern Egypt, nationalism and intellectual history, and he won the Landau Prize in 2007.

He is married to Shani Katz-Gershoni and has 2 children, Michal and the artist Nimrod Gershoni.