Martin Kramer, at The Blogs

Martin Kramer

on Israel and the Middle East

Nov 18, 2024, 9:45 PM

The Eden Theater in Tel Aviv as it appeared in 1914. Public domain.

Some years ago, I purchased a delightful 1924 poster at auction, advertising a performance of Verdi’s opera Aida by the Eretz-Israel (Palestine) Opera in Tel Aviv. The date of the performance? Exactly a century ago: November 18, 1924. The...

Oct 27, 2024, 1:25 PM

The bindings of Isaac: Goldziher’s library in Jerusalem

Ignaz Goldziher’s Budapest study, Goldziher family photo album, F72.94, Hungarian Jewish Museum and Archives.

This past Sukkot holiday marked an important anniversary for the National Library of Israel and the study of Islam in Israel. A century ago, the Hebrew University opened a prized acquisition to the Jerusalem public: the 6,000-volume private library...

Sep 11, 2024, 10:04 PM

Bernard Lewis: Remade in America

Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. Wikimedia Commons.

“When newly-appointed Professor of Near Eastern Studies Bernard Lewis arrives in Princeton next Wednesday, his presence will make the university ‘the strongest school in Near East history in the country.’” Thus did the Daily Princetonian report Lewis’s arrival, expected...

Aug 25, 2024, 5:09 AM

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Scenes from the massacres

Delacroix's painting depicts as much brutality as Western art dares, but the real-life graphic images from October 7 are too much for us to bear

Aug 16, 2024, 12:28 AM

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Down and out at Columbia

Minouche Shafik's departure as university president is being hailed as a win for Israel supporters. It's not.

Aug 10, 2024, 11:53 PM

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Bibi’s evolving Hamas story

Image created by DALL-E, OpenAI's image generation model.

Netanyahu recently said he held back on Hamas due to lack of domestic and foreign support. That's not what he said in his 2022 memoir

Jul 5, 2024, 8:03 AM

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The day the Mufti died

“To His Eminence the Grand Mufti as a memento. H. Himmler. July 4, 1943.” Israel State Archives.

Yes, Hajj Amin al-Husayni collaborated with the Nazis, but that's not why he was dropped from the Palestinian narrative

Jul 2, 2024, 6:22 PM

Assassination in Zion

Reward poster, Government of Palestine. Public domain.

It has been a century since the first nationalist murder of a Jew by a fellow Jew. On June 30, 1924, Jacob Israël de Haan left his evening synagogue prayers in Jerusalem. A man approached him and asked for...

May 16, 2024, 7:46 AM

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Israel must never stand alone

A small, isolated country invites aggression; to deter it, forge strong alliances. And then call upon those powerful allies to defeat human evil

Apr 19, 2024, 10:19 AM

Byron and Zion

Byron on his Death-bed by Joseph Dionysius Odevaere, c. 1826, Groeninge Museum, Bruges. Wikimedia.

April 19 marks the 200th anniversary of the death of the English Romantic poet Lord Byron, at the age of 36. Byron was an acclaimed celebrity in his day, hailed for his literary genius and scrutinized for his notorious...

About Me

Martin Kramer is a historian of the Middle East at Tel Aviv University and the Walter P. Stern fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

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