פרופ' מאיר ליטבק

מאיר ליטבק הוא פרופסור בחוג להיסטוריה של המזרח התיכון ועמית מחקר בכיר במרכז אליאנס ללימודים איראניים באוניברסיטת תל אביב. ​

סיימתי את לימודי התואר הראשון באוניברסיטת תל אביב, ואת התארים השני והשלישי באוניברסיטת הרווארד שבארצות הברית. לימדתי בחוג להיסטוריה של המזה"ת משנת 1990 ולצד זאת הייתי חוקר במרכז דיין לחקר המזה"ת. בשנת 2005, עברתי למרכז אליאנס ללימודים איראניים באוניברסיטה שנוסד אז, ובשנים 2019-2010 כיהנתי כראש מרכז אליאנס. כמו כן, כיהנתי בשנים 2020-2018 גם כראש החוג להיסטוריה של המזה"ת.

תחום ההתמחות העיקרית שלי הוא הממשק בין דת, חברה ופוליטיקה בשיעה האיראנית המודרנית, וכן הממשק בין לאומיות לדת במזרח התיכון המוסלמי. הלאומיות והדת ריתקו אותי מפני שמדובר בשתי האידיאולוגיות רבות העוצמה ביותר בעידן המודרני, שהניעו מיליוני בני אדם לפעולה, ובמידה רבה, גם גרמו למעשי הרצח מהנוראים ביותר בעידן המודרני. תחום מחקרי נוסף בו אני עוסק הוא אנטישמיות באיראן ובעולם הערבי, בדגש על היחס לשואה. כמו כן, כתבתי גם על האידיאולוגיה של תנועת החמאס. 

Books and Monographs

 

Know Thy Enemy: Evolving Attitudes towards "Others" in Modern Shiʻi Thought and Practice (Leiden: Brill, 2021).

 

Meir Litvak and Esther Webman, From Empathy to Denial: Arabic Responses to the Holocaust (London: Hurst Publishers Co and New York: Columbia University Press, 2009). Hebrew edition was published by Magnes and Yad Vashem press in 2015.

 

Co-author with Moshe Aharonov, Iran: From a Persian Empire to an Islamic Revolution (Tel Aviv: Open University of Israel, 2014).

 

Meir Litvak and Esther Webman, Arab Representations of the Holocaust: An Obstacle to Peace? (Tel Aviv: Tami Steinmetz Institute of Peace Studies, 2006, in Hebrew).

 

Shi`i Scholars of Nineteenth Century Iraq: The ^cUlama’ of  Najaf and Karbala’ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), xiii + 255 pages.

 

 

Edited Volumes

Constructing Nationalism in Iran: from the Qajars to the Islamic Republic (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017).

 

Co-Editor with Meir Hatina, Concepts of Martyrdom in Modern Islam: Political and Social Perspectives of Sacrifice and Death (London: I.B. Tauris, 2016).

 

Co-Editor with Bruce Maddy-Weitzman, Nationalism, Identity and Politics: Israel and the Middle East - Studies in Honor of Prof. Asher Susser (Tel Aviv: Dayan Center for Middle Eastern Studies, 2014, English and Hebrew).

 

Co-Editor with Ofra Bengio, Division and Ecumenism in Islam: The Sunna and Shi‘a in History (New York: Palgrave-McMillan, 2011).

 

Palestinian Collective Memory and National Identity (New York: Palgrave-McMillan, 2009).

 

Middle Eastern Societies and the West: Accommodation or Clash of Civilizations? (Tel Aviv: Dayan Center for Middle Eastern Studies, 2007).

 

Co-editor with Ora Limor (eds.), Religious Fanaticism (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, 2007, in Hebrew).

 

Islam and Democracy in the Arab World (Tel Aviv: Ha-Kibutz ha-Meuchad, 1997 in Hebrew).

 

Articles

Forthcoming 

"Justice and Velayat in Modern Iranian-Shi`i Thought," Middle Eastern Studies

 

Published

“Nationalism in Iran from the Pahlavis to the Islamic Republic: Continuity and Change,” Zemanim 143 (2021) 

 

“God’s Favored Nation: The New Religious Nationalism in Iran,”  Religions , 11:10 (October 2020), 1-19, 

 

"From Gharbzedegi to the Decline of the West: Attitudes towards the West in Modern Iranian Discourse," Alpayim Ve'od: Rethinkng Culture in Israel 1(Winter, 2018, Hebrew), pp. 99-125.​

 

"Netanyahu and the Mufti: Hajj Amin al-Husseini as Prime Instigator of the Destruction of European Jewry or Eager Accessory?," Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs Vol. 9 Issue 3 (2015), pp. 459-464.

 

"Freedom in the Iranian Clerical Debate," in AHA Roundtable: Religious Freedom in Islamic History, Perspectives on History (Summer 2015), Electronic Edition, http://historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/summer-2015

 

"`Martyrdom is Life': Jihad and Martyrdom in the Ideology of Hamas" Studies in Conflict and Terrorism Vol. 33 No. 8(2010), pp. 716-734. [A Hebrew version appeared as "Jihad and Sacrifice in the Doctrine of Hamas," in Yosef Kostiner (ed.) Jihad: Ideological Roots (Tel Aviv: Dayan Center for Middle Eastern Studies, 2012), pp. 159-184.

 

"The Islamic Republic of Iran and the Holocaust: Anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism," Journal of Israeli History Vol. 25 (2006), pp. 245-266.

 

Meir Litvak and Joshua Teitelbaum, “Edward Said’s Orientalism: Some Methodological Comments,” Ha-Mizrah He-Hadash Vol. 45 (2005), pp. 5-22. An English version, published as "Students, Teachers, and Edward Said: Taking Stock of Orientalism," The Middle East Review of International Affairs Vol. 10 (March 2006).

 

“Slavery [to God] is Freedom: Modern Islamic Concepts of Liberty” Historia No. 16 (2005), pp. 55-80 (in Hebrew). [Published also in Religious Fanaticism, 2007].

 

"The anti-Semitism of Hamas," Palestine-Israel Journal of Politics, Economics and Culture, Vol. 12 Nos. 2+3 (2005), pp. 41-47.

 

“Iran and Israel: The Ideological Enmity and its Roots,” Iyunim be-Tkumat Yisrael Vol. 14(2004), pp. 367-392 (in Hebrew).

 

Meir Litvak and Esther Webman, “The Representation of the Holocaust in the Arab World,” Journal of Israeli History: Special Issue, After Eichmann: Collective Memory and the Holocaust since 1961 Vol. 23 No. 1 (Spring, 2004), pp. 100-115.

 

Meir Litvak and Esther Webman, “Perceptions of the Holocaust in the Palestinian Public Discourse,” Israel Studies Vol. 8 No. 3 (Fall, 2003), pp. 123-140.

 

An updated Hebrew version appeared as "The Palestinians and the Holocaust: A Historical Perspective," in Bashir Bashir and Amos Goldberg (eds.), The Holocaust and the Nakba: Memory, National Identity and Jewish Arab Partnership (Jerusalem: Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, 2015) pp. 206-241.

 

“Money, Religion and Politics: The Oudh Bequest in Najaf and Karbala’, 1850-1903” International Journal of Middle East Studies Vol. 33 No. 1(February, 2001), pp. 1-21.

 

“The Rule of the Jurist (Velayat-e Faqih) in Iran: Ideal and Implementation,” Ha-Mizrah He-Hadash, Vol. 42 (2001, in Hebrew), pp. 167-184.

 

“Failed Manipulation: The British, the Oudh Bequest and the Shi`i Ulama’ of Najaf and Karbala,” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies Vol. 27 No. 1(2000), pp. 68-89.

 

"The Finances of the `Ulama’ Communities of Najaf and Karbala' in the Nineteenth Century," Die Welt des Islams Vol. 40 No. 1(2000), pp. 41-66.

 

"The Islamization of the Israeli-Arab Conflict: the Case of Hamas," Middle Eastern Studies Vol. 23 No. 1(1998), pp. 148-163.

 

"Palestinian Nationalism and Islam: the case of Hamas," Nationalism and Ethnic Politics Vol. 2 No. 4(Winter 1996), pp. 500-522.

 

"The Shi`ite ^cUlama' of Najaf and Karbala' and the Ottoman Tanzimat," The Harvard  Middle Eastern and Islamic Review 4(Spring, 1995), pp. 72-88.

 

"A Palestinian Past: National Construction and Reconstruction," History and Memory Vol. 6 No. 2 (Fall/Winter 1994), pp. 24-56. Also published in German in Sozialwissenschaflische Informationen Vol. 23 No. 2 (April-June, 1994).

 

"Palestinian Leadership in the West Bank during the Intifada, 1987-1992," Orient Vol. 34, No. 2 (July, 1993), pp. 199-220.

 

"Continuity and Change in the `Ulama Population of Najaf and Karbala, 1791-1904: A Socio-Demographic Study," Iranian Studies Vol. 23 (1990). pp. 31-60.

 

 

Chapters in Books

Invited:

“The Islamic Republic of Iran and Israel” in The Cambridge History of Iran Volume 8.

"The Jews as Enemies of Iran," in Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet and Alon Tam (eds.), The Jews of Iran

 

Published

מלחמת היהודים בשיעה: המצאת עבר וחזון משיחי חדש," ב:מאיר חטינה וישראל גרשוני (עורכים), 1. עבר מתעתע: מיתוס, היסטוריה וזיכרון בחברות אסלאמיות ובחברה הישראלית (תל אביב: רסלינג, 2021), 237-203"

 

“Radical Islamist Movements and Antisemitism: Between Old and New,” in Armin Lange, Kerstin Mayerhofer, Dina Porat and Laurence H. Schiffman (eds.), Confronting Antisemitism in Modern Media, the Legal and Political Worlds (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021), pp. 133-148.

 

“Modern Antisemitism in Iran: Old Themes and New Trends,” in Armin Lange, Kerstin Mayerhofer, Dina Porat and Laurence H. Schiffman (eds.), An End to Antisemitism: Confronting Antisemitism From the Perspectives of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020), , pp. 301-320.

 

"Iranian Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust," in Anthony McElligott and Jeffrey Herf (Eds): Antisemitism Before and Since the Holocaust: Altered Contexts and Recent Perspectives (New York: Palgrave-McMillan), pp.  205-229. 

 

"Revolt and Revolution in Iran: An Historical Perspective," in Elie Podeh and Onn Winckler (eds.), The Third Wave: Protest and Revolution in the Middle East (Jerusalem: Carmel, Hebrew, 2017), pp. 200-223.

 

The Clerical Establishment in Iran: Changes and Challenges," in Liora Hendelman-Baavur (ed.), Iran Then and Now: Essays in Honor of David Menashri (Tel Aviv: Ha-Kibutz ha-Meuchad, Hebrew, 2017), 19-38.

 

"Iranian Foreign Policy in View of Changing Regional Realities," in Liora Hendelman-Baavur (ed.), Iran Then and Now: Essays in Honor of David Menashri (Tel Aviv: Ha-Kibutz ha-Meuchad, Hebrew, 2017), pp. 219-252.

 

"Introduction," in Meir Litvak (ed.) Constructing Nationalism in Iran: From the Qajars to the Islamic Republic (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017), pp. 1-9.

 

"Construction of Iranian Nationalist Identity: An Historical Overview," in Meir Litvak (ed.) Constructing Nationalism in Iran: From the Qajars to the Islamic Republic (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017), pp. 10-31.

 

"Nationalism and Islam in a Provincial Setting: Late Qajar Isfahan," in Meir Litvak (ed.) Constructing Nationalism in Iran: From the Qajars to the Islamic Republic (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017), pp. 86-100.

 

Co-author with Meir Hatina, "Introduction," in Meir Hatina and Meir Litvak (eds.), Concepts of Martyrdom in Modern Islam: Social and Political Settings (London: I.B. Tauris, 2016), pp. 1-20.

 

"Martyrdom is Bliss: The Iranian Concept of Martyrdom during the War with Iraq, 1981–1988," in Meir Hatina and Meir Litvak (eds.), Concepts of Martyrdom in Modern Islam: Social and Political Settings (London: I.B. Tauris, 2016), pp. 116-130.

 

"Is Iran Indeed More Moderate?" in Emily B. Landau and Anat Kurz (Eds), The Interim Deal on the Iranian Nuclear Program: Toward a Comprehensive Solution? (Tel Aviv: INSS, Memorandum No. 142 September 2014), pp. 41-50.

 

"The 1979 Iranian Revolution in Historical Perspective," in Brandon Friedman and Bruce Maddy-Weitzman (eds.), Inglorious Revolutions: State Cohesion in the Middle East after the Arab Spring (Tel Aviv: Moshe Dayan Center, 2014), pp. 353-370.

 

"Charisma and Politics in the Evolution of Modern Shi‘i Leadership," in D. Ephrat and M. Hatina (eds.), Commanding Knowledge: Religious Authority and Spiritual Power in Islam with Jewish Perspectives (Salt Lake City: Utah University Press, 2014), pp. 206-224.

 

"Iranian Antisemitism: Continuity and Change in Charles Asher Small (ed.), Global Antisemitism: A Crisis of Modernity: Volume IV: Islamism and the Arab World (New York: ISGAP, 2013), pp. 55-66.

 

"The Palestinian National Authority and Islam, 1994–2006," in A. Shapira  et al (eds.), The Nation State and Religion: The Resurgence of Faith (Sussex Academic Press and the Israeli Democracy Institute, 2013), Vol. II, pp. 57-73.

 

"Introduction," in Yosef Kostiner (ed.) Jihad: Ideological Roots (Tel Aviv: Dayan Center for Middle Eastern Studies, 2012), pp. 11-28.

 

"The Hamas Movement: Muslim Brothers with a Palestinian Uniqueness," in M. Hatina and U. Kupferschmidt (eds.), The Muslim Brothers: A Religious Vision in a Changing Reality (Tel Aviv: Ha-Kibutz ha-Meuchad, 2012), pp. 203-239

 

Co-author with Ofra Bengio, "Introduction," and "Epilogue," in Ofra Bengio and Meir Litvak (eds.), Division and Ecumenism in Islam: The Sunna and Shi‘a in History (New York: Palgrave-McMillan, 2011), pp. 1-16, 243-252.

 

"Encounters between Shi‘i and Sunni ‘Ulama' in Ottoman Iraq," in Ofra Bengio and Meir Litvak (eds.), Division and Ecumenism in Islam: The Sunna and Shi‘a in History. (New York: Palgrave-McMillan, 2011), pp. 69-86.

 

Co-author with Esther Webman, "Israel and the World," in Albert Lindemann and Richard Levy (eds.), Anti-Semitism: A History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 237-249.

 

"Introduction," in Litvak (ed.), Palestinian Collective Memory and National Identity (New York: Palgrave-McMillan, 2009), pp. 1-39.

 

"Constructing a National Past: The Palestinian Case," in Litvak (ed.), Palestinian Collective Memory and National Identity (New York: Palgrave-McMillan, 2009), pp. 97-133. An updated Hebrew version appeared under the title: 'Our Canaanite Forefathers,' On the Construction of the pre-Islamic Past in the Palestinian National Discourse," in Litvak and Maddy-Weitzman (eds.), Nationalism, Identity and Politics: Israel and the Middle East (Tel Aviv: Dayan Center for Middle Eastern Studies, 2014), pp. 79-114.

 

"Democracy and Islam: The Clerical Debate in Contemporary Iran," in Joshua Teitelbaum (ed.), Political Liberalization in the Gulf (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2009), pp. 271-301.

 

"`More harmful than the Jews': anti-Shi`i polemics in modern radical Sunni discourse, in Le shi`isme imamite quarante ans après: Hommage à Etan Kohlberg, eds. Muhammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, Meir M. Bar-Asher and Simon Hopkins, (Paris 2008), pp. 285-306.

 

Meir Litvak and Ora Limor, "Introduction," in Religious Fanaticism (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, 2007, in Hebrew), pp. 11-26.

"Introduction," in Meir Litvak (ed.), Middle Eastern Societies and the West: Accommodation or Clash of Civilizations? (Tel Aviv: Dayan Center for Middle Eastern Studies, 2007), pp. 11-32.

 

"Islamic Democracy vs. Western Democracy: The Debate Among Islamists," in Middle Eastern Societies and the West Accommodation or Clash of Civilizations? (Tel Aviv: Dayan Center for Middle Eastern Studies, 2007), pp. 199-220.

 

“Religious and National Fanaticism: the case of Hamas,” in Matthew Hughes and Gaynor Johnson (eds.), Fanaticism and Conflict in the Modern Age (London: Frank Cass, 2005), pp. 155-174.

 

"Iran's Rebellious Youth," in Tamar Yegnes ed., The Middle East:The Impact of  Generational Change (Tel Aviv: Dayan Center, 2005 in Hebrew), pp. 95-108.

 

“Students and Teachers in Nineteenth Century Najaf and Karbala'” in Ami Ayalon and David Wasserstein (eds.) Madrasa: Education, Religion and the State in the Middle East (Tel Aviv: Moshe Dayan Center, 2004 in Hebrew), pp. 129-146.

 

"Fundamentalist Islam and the Women Question: Puritanism and Politics," in Women in the Middle East: Between Tradition and Change Ofra Bengio (ed.), Dayan Center Papers, # 134 (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 2004, in Hebrew), pp. 41-51.

 

Bruce Maddy-Weitzman and Meir Litvak, “Islamism and the State in North Africa,” in Barry Rubin (ed.), evolutionaries and Reformers: Contemporary Islamist Movements in the Middle East (Albany: SUNY Press, 2003), pp. 69-90.

 

“Madrasa and Learning in Nineteenth Century Najaf and Karbala,” in W. Ende and R. Brunner (eds.), The Twelver Shi`a in Modern Times: Religious Culture and Political History (Leiden: Brill, 2000), pp. 58-78.

 

"A Minority which is also a Majority: The Shi`i `Ulama’ in Iraq during the 19th and 20th Centuries," in Shulamit Volkov et al. (eds.), Minorities, Foreigners and Outsiders (Jerusalem: The Zalman Shazar Center, 2000, in Hebrew), pp. 221-242.

 

"Introduction," in Meir Litvak (ed.), Islam and Democracy in the Arab World (Tel Aviv: Ha-Kibutz ha-Meuchad, 1998 in Hebrew), pp. 9-23.

 

"Hamas: Islam, Palestinian Identity and Jihad," in Meir Litvak (ed.), Islam and Democracy in the Arab World (Tel Aviv: Ha-Kibutz ha-Meuchad, 1998 in Hebrew), pp. 147-179.

 

"Islamist Movements and Democracy: the Historiographical Debate," in Meir Litvak (ed.), Islam and Democracy in the Arab World (Tel Aviv: Ha-Kisbutz ha-Meuchad, 1998 in Hebrew), pp. 236-251.

 

"Inside Versus Outside: The Challenge of the Local Leadership, 1967-1994," in Avraham Sela ed. The PLO and Israel, 1964-1994: From Armed Struggle to Accommodation (New York: St. Martin Press, 1997), pp. 171-196.

 

Book Reviews

Rex Brynen, Pete W. Moore, Bassel F. Salloukh, Marie-Joelle Zahar, Beyond the Arab Spring: Authoritarianism & Democratization in the Middle East (Boulder & London: Lynn Rienner, 2012), The Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs 7:2(2013), pp. 147-150.

 

Ilan Pappe, The Rise and Fall of a Palestinian Dynasty:The Husaynis, 1700-1948 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2010), Bustan: the Middle East Book Review, 3(2012) pp. 68-74.

 

"Robert Satloff, Among the Righteous: Lost Stories from the Holocaust Long Reach into Arab Lands."  Shofar (expected publication, May 2009).

 

"Kamran Scot Aghaie, The Martyrs of Karbala: Shi‘i Symbols and Rituals in Modern Iran." American Historical Review, Vol. 114, No. 2, April 2009), p. 521.

 

"Haggai Ram, Reading Iran in Israel," Catharsis, No. 11 (Summer 2009), pp. 58-103 (Hebrew).

 

"Daniel Tzadik, Between Foreigners and Shi‘is: Nineteenth Century Iran and its Jewish Minority." Middle Eastern Studies vol. 45 no. 5(September 2009), pp. 847-855.

 

"Fouad Ajami: The Dream Palaces of the Arabs," Jama`a Vol. 8 (2001, in Hebrew), pp. 171-178.

 

"Moshe Zak, King Husayn Makes Peace: Thirty Years of Secret Talks," Hamizrah He-Hadash Vol. 41 (2000, in Hebrew), pp. 198-200.

 

"Elie Podeh, The Struggle for Hegemony in the Arab World," Hamizrah He-Hadash Vol. 39 (1998-99, in Hebrew), pp. 219-221.