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Martin S. Kramer

Martin Kramer is an American-Israeli scholar of the Middle East, known for his work on Islamist history and his critique of Middle Eastern studies in America.

born 1954Research on Islamist political historyThe book Ivory Towers on SandFirst president of Shalem CollegeHeading the Moshe Dayan Center

Born: 9 September 1954, Washington, D.C.
Occupation: political scientist, journalist, orientalist, Islamicist
Education: Princeton University, Columbia University

Martin S. Kramer was born in 1954 in Washington, D.C.

Martin Seth Kramer was born on September 9, 1954, in Washington, D.C.

He began his undergraduate studies in Middle Eastern Studies at Tel Aviv University under Itamar Rabinovich and finished his BA at Princeton University in 1975. He earned an MA in history at Columbia University. In 1982 he received a PhD in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton, with a thesis directed by Bernard Lewis.

Kramer works at Tel Aviv University and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, focusing on modern Islam, Middle Eastern politics and modern Israel. He headed the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies from 1995 to 2001 and was the first president of Shalem College in Jerusalem. He has taught as a visiting professor at several American universities and edited the Middle East Quarterly.

In 2001 he published Ivory Towers on Sand, a book arguing that American Middle East experts had misjudged Islam, which drew both praise and criticism. In 2007 he advised Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign on the Middle East. A 2010 speech at the Herzliya Conference on aid to Palestinian refugees in Gaza caused controversy, and Harvard deans rejected calls to distance the university from him.