2025-2026 Events & Programs
Reading Herzl in Beirut: The PLO Effort to Know the Enemy
Date: Tuesday, September 24, 2024
Time: 07:30pm - 08:30pm
Location: Douglass Student Center, 100 George Street, New Brunswick
The Raoul Wallenberg Annual Program, funded by Leon and Toby Cooperman
Jonathan Marc Gribetz, professor of Near Eastern studies and Judaic studies at Princeton University, will discuss his new book, Reading Herzl in Beirut: The PLO Effort to Know the Enemy (Princeton University Press, 2024). Gribetz explores the history of the Palestine Liberation Organization Research Center, from its establishment in 1965 until its ultimate expulsion from Lebanon in 1983. He examines why the PLO invested in research about the Jews, what its researchers learned about Judaism and Zionism, and how the knowledge they acquired informed the PLO’s relationship to Israel.
Jonathan Marc Gribetz directs the Institute for the Transregional Study of the Contemporary Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia at Princeton University. He is also the author of Defining Neighbors: Religion, Race, and the Early Zionist-Arab Encounter (Princeton University Press, 2014). He was an assistant professor of Jewish studies and history at Rutgers from 2011 until 2014.
