David Myers

Education

David N. Myers received his A.B. from Yale College in 1982, and undertook graduate studies at Tel-Aviv and Harvard Universities before completing his doctorate at Columbia in 1991.

Publications

Books (Authored)

• Between Jew and Arab: The Lost Voice of Simon Rawidowicz, Brandeis University Press, 2008
• Re-Inventing the Jewish Past: European Jewish Intellectuals and the Zionist Return to History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.
• Resisting History: Historicism and its Discontents in German-Jewish Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003).

Books (Edited) 

• David N. Myers and William V. Rowe, eds. From Ghetto to Emancipation: Historical and Contemporary Reconsiderations of the Jewish Community, introduction by D. N. Myers. Scranton, PA: University of Scranton Press, 1997.
• David N. Myers and David B. Ruderman, eds. The Jewish Past Revisited: Reflections on Modern Jewish Historians, introduction by D. N. Myers. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998.
• Elisheva Carlebach, John M. Efron, and David N. Myers, eds. Jewish History and Jewish Memory: Essays in Honor of Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1998.
  Richard Hovannisian and David N. Myers, eds. Enlightenment and Diaspora: The Armenian and Jewish Cases. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999.
• Michael Brenner and David N. Myers, Jüdische Geschichtsschreibung heute: Themen, Positionen, Kontroversen. Munich: Beck Verlag, 2002.
• David N. Myers et. al. Acculturation and its Discontents: The Italian Jewish Experience between Integration and Exclusion University of Toronto Press, 2008.
• David N. Myers and Alexander Kaye, eds. The Faith of Fallen Jews: Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi and the Writing of Jewish History.

Recent Opinion Pieces and Lectures 

• “The Faith of Fallen Jews: The greatness of a Jewish historian”, TLV1, April 6, 2014
• “Cut from the top to save UC”, Los Angeles Times, May 31, 2013
• “History matters: Garcetti and the history of Jewish politics”, Jewish Journal, May 29, 2013
• “R.B. Kitaj: Commentary on an Eccentric Jewish Life,” Jewish Museum Berlin. October 25, 2012

Articles 

• Pini Dunner and David N. Myers, “A Haredi Attack on Rabbi Joseph Ber Soloveitchik: A Battle over the Brisker Legacy,” Jewish Quarterly Review 105 (Winter 20105), 131-138.
• “Six Theses on the Sustainability of a Minority Culture in a Majority Society: The Jewish and Muslim Cases” Muslim World 104 (2014), 397-400
• “Introduction,” Issue devoted Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, Jewish History (February, 2014)
• “‘Commanded War’: Three Chapters in the ‘Military’ History of Satmar Hasidism,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 2013;doi: 10.1093/jaarel/lfs101
• “Reflecting on the Jewish Condition in the Kaffeehaus,” Obsessions: R. B. Kitaj, 1932-2007 (Berlin, 2012), 113-118
• La ‘Civilisation’ après Mordecai Kaplan: Sur l’idée d’une entité juive globale aujourd’hui in Shmuel Trigano, ed. La civilisation du judaïsme de l’exil à la diaspora (Paris, 2012), 39-50
• “She’elat ha-pelitim: mabat hadash `al zikaron ve-shikhekhah” (The Refugee Question: A New Look at Remembrance and Forgetting), in Meir Chazan and Uri Cohen, eds. Tarbut, zikaron ve-historyah be-hokarah le-Anita Shapira (Jerusalem: Shazar Center, 2012), 655-669.
• “A Novel Look at Moshe Idel’s East-West Problem,” Jewish Quarterly Review 102:2 (Spring 2012), 289-296.
• “Entre Palestinocentrisme et nationalisme diasporique: Le double héritage de Ben-Zion Dinur,” Les cahiers du judäisme 31 (2011), 92-96
• “Rethinking the Jewish Nation: An Exercise in Applied Jewish Studies,” Havruta 6 (Winter 2011), 26-33.
• ““Jenseits des Einfluesses: Hin zu einer neuen Kulturgeschichte?”,” Aschkenas: Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Kultur der Juden 18/19 (2009), 495-507.
• “Is there still a ‘Jerusalem School?’ Reflections on the State of Jewish Historical Scholarship in Israel.” Jewish History 23 (2009), 389-406
• “Philosophy and Kabbalah in Wissenschaft des Judentums: Rethinking the Narrative of Neglect.” Studia Judaica (Cluj-Napoca) 16 (2008), 56-71.
• “Simon Rawidowicz on the Arab Question: A Prescient Gaze into the ‘New History.’” Lauren B. Strauss and Michael Brenner, Mediating Modernity: Challenges and Trends in the Jewish Encounter with the Modern World: Essays in Honor of Michael A. Meyer (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2008), 143-167.
• “Discourses of Civilization: The Shifting Course of a Modern Jewish Motif.” Jeremy Cohen and Richard I. Cohen, eds. The Jewish Contribution to Civilization: Reassessing an Idea (Oxford: Littman Library, 2008), 24-35.
• “Glaube und Geschichte: A Vexed Relationship in German-Jewish Culture.” Modern Judaism and Historical Consciousness, edited by A. Gotzmann and C. Wiese (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 54-72.
• “R. B. Kitaj and the State of ‘Jew-on-the-Brain.’” The Jewish Role in American Life 5 (2007), 69-73.
• “Simon Rawidowicz, ‘Hashpaitis,’ and the Perils of Influence.” Transversal 7 (2006), 13-26, reprinted in Klaus Hödl, Kulturelle Grenzräume in jüdischen Kontext (Innsbruck, 2008), 65-76.
• “Vom Berlin nach Jerusalem: Zionismus, jüdische Wissenschaft und die Mühsal kultereller Dissonanz.” Janusfiguren: Jüdische Heimstätte, Exil und Nation im deutschen Zionismus (Berlin: Metropol Verlag, 2006).
• “Can there be a Principled Anti-Zionism?: On the Nexus between Anti-Historicism and Anti-Zionism in Modern Jewish Thought.”Journal of Israeli History 25 (March 2006), 33-50.
• “A Third Guide for the Perplexed?” Simon Rawidowicz ‘On Interpretation.’” History and Literature: New Readings of Jewish Texts in Honor of Arnold J. Band. Edited by William Cutter and David C. Jacobson. Providence: Brown Judaic Studies, 2002.
• “Selbstreflexion im modernen Erinnerungsdiskurs.” Jüdische Geschichtsschreibung heute: Themen, Positionen, Kontroversen. Munich: Beck Verlag, 2002.
• “Rebel in Frankfurt: The Scholarly Origins of Jacob Katz.” The Pride of Jacob: Essays on Jacob Katz and His Work. Edited by Jay M. Harris. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002.
• The Problem of History in German-Jewish Thought: Observations on a Neglected Tradition (Cohen, Rosenzweig, and Breuer). The Samuel Braun Lecture in the History of the Jews of Prussia. Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press. 2001.
• “Between Yiddish and Hebrew—and Greek? Thoughts on the Language(s) of Jewish History.
• “Commentary to roundtable discussion in Jewish Book Annual 55/56 (1997-1999), 45-52. 
• “Hazono shel Hazony, or Even If You Will It, It Can Still Be a Dream.” Israel Studies 6 (Summer 2001), 107-117.
• “Hermann Cohen and the Quest for Protestant Judaism.” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 46 (2001), 195-214.
• ‘Mehabevin et ha-tsarot’: Crusade Memories and Modern Jewish Martyrologies.” Jewish History 13:2 (Fall 1999), 49-64.
• “Introduction and commentary, Enlightenment and Diaspora: The Armenian and Jewish Cases (Atlanta, 1999), 1-3, 125-130.
• “Derrida’s Yerushalmi, Yerushalmi’s Freud: History, Memory and Hope in a Post-Holocaust Age.” La Sho’ah tra intrepetazione e memoria (Naples, 1999), 489-507.
• “Response to Jay Harris’ Reading of the Israeli Declaration of Independence.” Textual Reasoning 8 (November) 1998, 1-4.
• “Mashber ha-historicism u-misud mada`e ha-Yahadut” (The Crisis of Historicism and the Institutionalization of Jewish Studies). Mada`e ha-Yahadut (Journal of the World Union of Jewish Studies) (Fall 1998).
• “Of Marranos and Memory: Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi and the Writing of Jewish History.” Jewish History and Jewish Memory: Essays in Honor of Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, (Hanover, NH, 1998), 1-21.
• Introduction and “Between Diaspora and Zion: History, Memory and the Jerusalem Scholars.” The Jewish Past Revisited, (New Haven, 1998), 1-15 , 88-103. 
• Introduction and “‘The Blessing of Assimilation’ Reconsidered: An Inquiry into Jewish Cultural Studies,” From Ghetto to Emancipation: Historical and Contemporary Reconsiderations of the Jewish Community (Scranton, PA, 1997), vii-xviii, 17-36.
• “The Ideology of Wissenschaft des Judentums.” Daniel Frank and Oliver Leaman, eds., History of Jewish Philosophy (London, 1997), 706-721.
• “A New Scholarly Colony in Jerusalem: The Early History of Jewish Studies.,” Judaism (Spring 1996), 142-159.
• “‘Distant Relatives Happening onto the Same Inn’: The Meeting of East and West as Literary Theme and Cultural Ideal.” Jewish Social Studies I:2 (1994/95), 75-100.
• Was there a ‘Jerusalem School?’: An Inquiry into the First Generation of Historical Researchers at the Hebrew University.” Studies in Contemporary Jewry (10) 1994, 66-92.
• “Eugen Täubler: The Personification of ‘Judaism as Tragic Existence’” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book (39) 1994, 131-150.
• “In Search of the “Harmonious Jew”: Judah L. Magnes between East and West. John L. Sills
  Memorial Lecture. Berkeley, 1993.
• “The Fall and Rise of Jewish Historicism: The Evolution of the Akademie für die Wissenschaft des Judentums (1919-1934).” Hebrew Union College Annual 63 (1992), 107-144.
• “Remembering Zakhor: A Super-Commentary,” History and Memory 4 (Fall/Winter 1992), 129-146.
• Nomi Maya Stolzenberg and David N. Myers, “Community, Constitution and Culture: The Case of the Jewish Kehilah.” Michigan Journal of Law Reform 25 (Spring and Summer 1992), 633-670.
• “History as Ideology: The Case of Ben Zion Dinur, Zionist Historian ‘Par Excellence’.” ­Modern Judaism, May 1988, 167-194.
• “The Scholem-Kurzweil Debate and Modern Jewish Historiography.” Modern Judaism, October 1986, 261-285.

Reviews

• “Between Past and Present, Jew and Arab: An Exchange between Gil Anidjar and David N. Myers,” AJS Review 34 (2010), 400-403.
• “Victory and Sorrow,” review of Khirbet Khizeh by S. Yizhar. The New Republic, October 22, 2008, 44-47.
• Review of The Jewish Century by Yuri Slezkine.Los Angeles Jewish Journal, December 31, 2004.
• Review of Mémoire juive et nationalité allemande: Les juifs berlinois à la Belle Époque by Jacques Ehrenfreund. Jewish History, fall 2003. 
• “Ha-Yahadut ha-reformit: teguvah yehudit le-modernah.” ­Ha-Doar, 2.24.89, 14-17.(Review essay of Michael A. Meyer, ­Response to Modernity.)
• Review of ­Fateful Months: Essays on the Emergence of the Final Solution by Christopher Browning. Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Vol. 3, No. 1, 1988.
• Review of ­Political Principles in Maimonidean Halakha (Hebrew) by Gerald J. Blidstein. AJS Review, Fall 1987, 282-290.
• Review of ­Hitler and the Armenian Genocide by Kevork Bardakjian. ­Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Vol. 2, No. 1,1987. 

Other

• “Geschichte” (entry) in Enzyklopädie jüdische Geschichte und Kultur, vol. II, 437-450
• “Rethinking Secularization Theory: The Case of the Hasidic Public Square,” with Nomi M. Stolzenberg. AJS Perspectives Spring 2011, 37-38.
• “Rethinking Jewish Collectivity in a Post-Statist World,” Jewish Peoplehood Papers 5 (2010), 8-11.
• “What does Kiryas Joel Tell Us about Liberalism in America?” With Nomi M. Stolzenberg. The Chronicle: Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, 71 (2008), 49-53.
• “R. B. Kitaj (1932-2007) and the Jewish Archive.” American Art (Summer 2008), 98-100.
• “R. B. Kitaj and the Idea of ‘Jewish Art.’” R. B. Kitaj: Passion and Memory (Exhibition catalogue from the Skirball Culture Center, 2008).
• Editor’s Introductions in the Jewish Quarterly Review 94: 1 (2004),94:4 (2003) ; 95: 3 (2005), 97:4 (2007), 99:4 (2009).
• Section Introduction, Western State Jewish History (special issue devoted to Pioneer Jews of Los Angeles in the Nineteenth Century) 38 (Spring/Summer 2006), 154-156.
• Roundtable Special Feature: “The Israeli Settlements.” Yale Israel Journal 7 (Summer 2005), 34-35.
• Interview, “Zu ‘Diaspora’ und den ‘Segnungen der Assimilation.’” Kalonymus 4 (2001), 23-27.
• Entries in The Oxford Dictionary of Jewish Religion, Encyclopaedia Judaica, and Zeman Yehudi hadash.
• “Dual Loyalty in a Post-Zionist Era”. Judaism, summer 1989, 333-343.
• Historical Appendix in Reuven Porat, ­The History of the Kibbutz: Collective Education, 1904-1929. Norwood Editions, Norwood PA: 1985, 150-193.
• Opinion pieces in the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, the Jewish Forward, Los Angeles Times, and Agos (Istanbul).