David Menashri, Professor Emeritus of Tel Aviv University, is the Founding Director of the Alliance Center for Iranian Studies and Senior Research Fellow at Tel Aviv University (TAU). His main field of academic research is religion, society and politics in modern Iran, Islamic Radicalism (with focus on Shi’i Islam), Iranian-Israeli relations, the Persian Gulf region and history of education in the Muslim world. Menashri founded and was the first Director the Alliance Center for Iranian Studies, the first of its kind in Israel (2005-2010), and the first Incumbent of the Parviz and Pouran Nazarian Chair for Modern Iranian Studies (1997-2011). He was chair of the Department of Middle Eastern and African History (1996-2000) and Dean for Special Programs (2001-2010), in charge of the School of Overseas Students, the Preparatory Programs and Immigrants Scientists, at Tel Aviv University.
An internationally recognized scholar and lecturer, Prof. Menashri has participated in numerous conference, delivered public lecture and has been a source in media in Israel and in many other countries. Following his retirement from TAU in 2011, he served as the President of the College of Law and Business in Ramat Gan, Israel (2011-215). In the academic Year 2016\17 he was a Visiting Fellow at the Center for Iranian and Persian Gulf Studies at Princeton University, in 2017 and 2018 Visiting Professor at UCLA’s Nazarian Center for Israel Studies and in 2019 he was the Visiting Israel Scholar at the Diplomatic Academy, Vienna. Prior to this, he has been a Visiting Fulbright scholar at Princeton (1984-85) and Cornell University (1985-86) and a Visiting Professor\Scholar at the Universities of Chicago, Yale, Oxford, Melbourne, Munich and Waseda (Tokyo).
In the late 1970s Menashri spent two years conducting research and field studies at Tehran University on the eve of the Islamic Revolution. Outside academia Prof. Menashri is active in numerous NGOs, in Israel and abroad. He is member of the International Council of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs (1995 Nobel Peace Prize) and chairman of the Israeli Pugwash Forum; Board Member of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East; Chairman of the Maccabim Foundation for Scholarships in Israel (from 1994). He was also Chairman of International Scholarship Education Fund (ISEF) in Israel (1996-2006), President of Citizens 39; Empowerment Center in Israel (1996-2000).
Prof. Menashri authored and edited ten books including Post-Revolutionary Politics in Iran: Religion, Society and Power; Iran after Khomeini: Revolution at A Crossroads: Iran: Between Islam and the West (Hebrew); Education and the Making of Modern Iran; Iran: A Decade of War and Revolution; Iran in Revolution (Hebrew). He is also the editor of: Iran: Anatomy of Revolution (together with Liora Hendelman-Baavur, Hebrew), Religion and State in the Middle East (Hebrew); Central Asia Meets the Middle East; Islamic Fundamentalism: A Challenge to Regional Stability (Hebrew); and The Iranian Revolution and the Muslim World. His book Education and the Making of Modern Iran (Cornell University Press, 1992) has been published last summer in Tehran, in cooperation with the Supreme Council of Higher Education in Iran. It is praised as the one of best book written on Iranian education. He is now concluding a new book “Iran, the United States and the Middle East” and editing a book on Iranian Jews in Israel.