David Biale
Scholar in Residence, The Richard S. Dinner Center for Jewish Studies, GTU
Emanuel Ringelblum Distinguished Professor of Jewish History, UC Davis
Emanuel Ringelblum Distinguished Professor of Jewish History, UC Davis
David Biale is Emanuel Ringelblum Distinguished Professor of Jewish History at the University of California, Davis. He was educated at UC Berkeley, the Hebrew University and UCLA. His most recent books are Hasidism: A New History (with seven co-authors), Gershom Scholem: Master of the Kabbalah and Not in the Heavens: The Tradition of Jewish Secular Thought. Earlier books are Gershom Scholem: Kabbalah and Counter-History, Power and Powerlessness in Jewish History, Eros and the Jews and Blood and Belief: The Circulation of a Symbol Between Jews and Christians. He is also the editor of Cultures of the Jews: A New History and the Norton Anthology of World Religions: Judaism. His books have been translated into eight languages and have won the National Jewish Book Award three times.
Professor Biale has served as chair of the Department of History at UC Davis and as Director of the Davis Humanities Institute. He also founded and directed the UC Davis Program in Jewish Studies. In 2011, he won the university’s highest award, the UC Davis Prize for Undergraduate Teaching and Scholarly Achievement. He also founded the Posen Society of Fellows, an international doctoral fellowship for students of modern Jewish history and culture.
Professor Biale previously served as the inaugural Koret Chair and Director of the Richard S. Dinner Center for Jewish Studies at the GTU.
Ph.D., Jewish History, UCLA, 1977
M.A., Modern European History, UC Berkeley, 1972
B.A., History, UC Berkeley, 1971
Professor Biale’s research is broadly in the areas of Jewish intellectual and cultural history. He has written on the historian Gershom Scholem, as well as on themes of power, sexuality, blood and secularization in Jewish history. His current project is as director of an international team writing the first history of Hasidism.
Professor Biale teaches courses on the history of Jewish culture, the Holocaust, the history of the State of Israel and secular Jewish thinkers.