Dr. Joel Beinin

Dr. Joel Beinin is the Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History and Professor of Middle East History, Emeritus at Stanford University. His research and writing focus on the social and cultural history and political economy of modern Egypt, Palestine and Israel, and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. He taught at Stanford from 1983 to 2019 with a hiatus as director of Middle East Studies and professor of history at the American University in Cairo in 2006-08. In 2002, he served as president of the Middle East Studies Association of North America. His books on Israel/Palestine include The Independent Left in Israel, 1967-1993: A Collection in Memory of Noam Kaminer [in Hebrew] (November Books, 2019), co-edited with Carmel Kaminer, Matan Kaminer, Smadar Nehab Kaminer and others; The Struggle for Sovereignty: Palestine and Israel, 1993-2005 (Stanford University Press, 2006), co-edited with Rebecca L. Stein; Was the Red Flag Flying There? Marxist Politics and the Arab-Israeli Conflict in Egypt and Israel, 1948-1965 (University of California Press, 1990); and Intifada: The Palestinian Uprising Against Israeli Occupation (South End Press, 1989), co-edited with Zachary Lockman. Joel is a member of Reconstructionist synagogue Havurah Shalom in Portland, Ore.; and is also a member of Reconstructing Judaism’s Joint Israel Commission.

Essays

Graffiti of a child jumping rope made of barbed wire, with the text Caution: Children Playing with Barbed Wire.

Expanding Our Conversation About Israel/Palestine

June 4, 2023

Resistance to calling the establishment of the State of Israel a nakba, a “catastrophe” for Palestinians, is reminiscent of the resistance of white Americans to acknowledging that American prosperity was built on oppression and white supremacy.

Dr. Joel Beinin

Essays

Expanding Our Conversation About Israel/Palestine

Sign up for our newsletter

The Reconstructionist Network

Read & Rite

Havaya Summer Programs

Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association

Placement Office

Reconstructionist Educators of North America