Bernard Lewis Prize

Jeffrey Herf's most recent book, lsrael's Moment; International Support for and Opposition to Establishing the Jewish State, 1945-1949 (Cambridge University Press, 2022)  has received the Bernard Lewis Prize awarded annually by the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA) .

According to the Award letter, the Bernard Lewis Prize recognizes the work of scholars engaged in the study of issues on antisemitism that were of great importance to ASMEA's founding chairman, Bernard Lewis. "While Christian antisemitism is well-studied, a stigma remains around addressing antisemitism in the Muslim world. Beyond this, relatively few scholars focus on the Middle Eastern dimensions of Christian antisemitism in religious and cultural terms, much less the political impact in the West. ASMEA was founded 15 years ago by the  historians Bernard Lewis and Fouad Ajami, both of whom made major contributions to the scholarship on the modern Middle East."

Jeffrey Herf adds: "Israel's Moment is a history of how the governments of the United States, Great Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and Soviet bloc reacted to the Zionist project in the crucial years of 1945 to 1949. It also addresses debates, especially in the United States, and at the United Nations, about Zionist aspirations, antisemitism, and the aftereffects of Nazism and the Holocaust. I am pleased that as a historian whose past work is on modern European history, my study of its aftereffects around the world and in the Middle East has received this acclaim among scholars of the Middle East as well."