​Jews in American Politics, Israel American Relations, Israel’s Changing Collective Identity, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict; a Historical Perspective, American Christian Leaders and the Struggle for Soviet Jewry, Religious & Ethnic Conflict among Jews in Israel

Fred Lazin received his M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago. He joined the faculty at Ben Gurion University (BGU) in Israel in 1975. At BGU, he established an Interdisciplinary Urban Studies Program and the Department of General Studies and chaired the Department of Behavioral Science. He served as the Director of the Hubert H. Humphrey Center of Social Ecology and the Overseas Student Program (OSP). During his tenure at OSP, the student body increased five fold.  In 1991 Fred became the Lynn and Lloyd Hurst Family Professor of Local Government. He recently completed two terms as Chair of the Department of Politics and Government at BGU. During 2008- 2009 he was the Natan Visiting Professor in the Taub Center for Israel Studies at the Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at NYU. In April 2010 Fred was the Mandelbaum Scholar in Residence in Jewish Studies at the University of Sydney in Australia.

Professor Lazin has authored over sixty scholarly articles and chapters in books. He has written and edited ten books dealing with public policy in the United States, Israel and developing countries, Israeli politics and society and Jews in American politics. He received the Israel Political Science Association's award for the outstanding English language book on politics in 2005 for The Struggle for Soviet Jewry in American Politics; Israel versus the American Jewish Establishment. His pioneering research on the response of American Jewish organizations to German Jewish refugees in the 1930s opened a new field in Holocaust Studies. His latest book Higher Education and Equality of Opportunity: Cross-National Perspectives was published in October 2010.

Contact: Lazin@bgu.ac.il