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Gil Ribak PhD

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Gil Ribak, PhD

Executive Director - Institute on American-Jewish Israeli Relations

gribak@ajula.edu

Phone: 310 476-9777

Ext: 265

Education

Tel Aviv University, B.A. in History and Political Science, Magna Cum Laude, 1996

Tel Aviv University, M.A. in History, Summa Cum Laude, 1999

University of Wisconsin-Madison, Ph.D. in History, 2007

Biography

Dr. Gil Ribak is the Director of the Institute on American Jewish-Israeli Relations and Assistant Professor of Jewish and Israel Studies since the summer of 2012. Born and raised in Israel, Dr. Ribak served as an analyst in the Israeli Prime Minister's Office before earning a Fulbright Fellowship that sent him to pursue his doctoral studies in the U.S. Prior to joining American Jewish University, Dr. Ribak served as the Lewin Postdoctoral Fellow in American Jewish History at Washington University in St. Louis (2007-2008) and the Schusterman Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Arizona (2010-2012).

Throughout his academic career, Dr. Ribak's scholarly interests were interwoven with planning and carrying out various programs and community outreach activities. As the Schusterman Postdoctoral Fellow, he delivered many lectures for various Jewish groups like Hadassah, a Holocaust Survivors' group at the Jewish Family and Children's Services of Southern Arizona, Parents of North American Israelis, and local synagogues. An aficionado of Yiddish culture, he also organized Yiddish film festivals in Tucson that attracted hundreds of people. In addition, he has worked to foster better understanding of Israel, appearing before non-Jewish groups and helping to organize a series of meetings called "A Spotlight on Israel" in Tucson, where different speakers focus on different aspects of Israeli life (e.g. the Haredim, Israeli Arabs, etc.).

In Israel, Dr. Ribak delivered public lectures sponsored by Yad Va-shem, and also participated in the planning stages of several history museums, such as the Palmach Museum (Tel Aviv), the Jewish Brigade Museum (Avichail) and the Jewish Underground Prisoners' Museum (Citadel of Acre).

Publications

Dr. Ribak's book, Gentile New York: The Images of Non-Jews among Jewish Immigrants, (2012) published by Rutgers University Press.
http://rutgerspress.rutgers.edu/product/Gentile-New-York,4003.aspx

"Beaten to Death by Irish Murderers": The Death of Sadie Dellon (1918) and the Images of the Irish", Journal of American Ethnic History (forthcoming, Summer 2013).

"You Can't Recognize America": American Jewish Perceptions of Antisemitism as a Transnational Phenomenon after World War I", in Christian Wiese and Cornelia Wilhelm (eds.), The History of American Jewry: Transcending the European Experience? (London: Continuum, forthcoming 2013).

"A Victory of the Slavs Means a Deathblow to Democracy": The Onset of World War I and the Images of the Warring Sides among Jewish Immigrants in New York, 1914-1916", in Yigal Levin and Amnon Shapira (eds.), War and Peace in Jewish Tradition: From the Ancient World to the Present (Oxford, UK: Routledge, 2011), 203-217.

"A Jew for All Seasons: Henry Kissinger, Jewish Expectations, and the Yom Kippur War", Israel Studies Forum 25 (Fall 2010): 1-25.

"They Are Slitting the Throats of Jewish Children": The 1906 New York School Riot and Contending Images of Gentiles", American Jewish History 94 (Sep. 2008): 175-196.

"German-Jewish Migration to the United States" (with Adi Gordon), in Thomas Adam (ed.), Germany and the Americas: Culture, Politics and History (Santa Barbara, CA and Oxford, UK: ABC-Clio, 2005), 13-22.

 "Immunity Is Not Eternal" was published in the Israeli daily newspaper Ma'ariv, March 25, 2012 (Hebrew).
http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART2/349/918.html?hp=1&cat=479&loc=26

"Earning Like Episcopalians, Voting Like Puerto-Ricans": Why American Jews Voted for Obama" (with Arnon Gutfeld), Kivunim Chadashim 20 (July-August 2009, Hebrew): 28-49.

"New' Historians, the Holocaust, and the Critique of Israeli Society", Midstream 49 (April 2003): 29-32.

"Inside Babylon': The American New Left's Image of the Enemy", Zmanim 64 (Fall 1998, Hebrew): 44-47.

Additional Professional Accomplishments

In 2011 Dr. Ribak was elected as a member of the Academic Council of the American Jewish Historical Society.

In 2008 Dr. Ribak appeared on a PBS documentary (aired on Channel 9/KETC), "St. Louis Stories: The Jewish Americans", where he discussed Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe to America.