Herbert and Elaine Gimelstob Eminent Scholar Chair in Jewish Studies
Herbert and Elaine Gimelstob established the chair to provide students and the community with an expert on Jewish culture to help combat antisemitism and recognize the contributions of Jewish civilization to the world.
Joining us in January 2023, Rachel Harris, Ph.D., Herbert and Elaine Gimelstob Eminent Scholar Chair of Jewish Studies; Director, Jewish Studies program; Professor of Cinema Studies, FAU School of Communication and Multimedia Studies
Harris received her Ph.D. in Hebrew Literature from The University of Oxford. She received her MA in Near and Middle Eastern Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies from the University of London. Before coming to FAU, she was an Associate Professor of Israeli Literature and Culture in Comparative and World Literature and the Program in Jewish Culture and Society at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Her recent publications include An Ideological Death: Suicide in Israeli Literature (2014) and Warriors, Witches, Whores: Women in Israeli Cinema (2017). She is the editor of Teaching the Arab-Israeli Conflict (2019), and co-editor of Narratives of Dissent: War in Contemporary Israeli Arts and Culture (2011) and Casting a Giant Shadow: The Transnational Shaping of Israeli Cinema (2021). She will serve as the Director of the Jewish Studies program at FAU.