Prof. Meir Litvak, Head of Alliance Center for Iranian Studies, Tel Aviv University

Meir Litvak (PhD Harvard 1991) is an Associate Professor at the Department of Middle Eastern History; Director of the Alliance Center for Iranian Studies at Tel Aviv University. His fields of expertise are Modern Shi‘i and Iranian History and modern Islamic movements. He is the author of Shici Scholars of Nineteenth Century Iraq: The ‘Ulama’ of Najaf and Karbala’ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998) and co-author of Iran: from a Persian Empire to an Islamic Republic (Tel Aviv: Open University of Israel Press, 2014, Hebrew). His book, From Empathy to Denial: Arab Responses to the Holocaust (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009, Hebrew edition 2015) co-authored with Esther Webman won the Gold Prize of The Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy Book Award for 2010. In addition he has edited and co-edited eight books, the most recent one co-edited with Meir Hatina, Martyrdom and Sacrifice in Islam: Theological, Political and Social Contexts came out two months ago. In addition, he has published articles on modern Shi‘i and Iranian history as well as on modern Islamic movements.