Professor Eyal Zisser was elected Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at Tel Aviv University

Professor Eyal Zisser was elected dean of the Lester and Sally Antin Faculty of Humanities at Tel Aviv University and will replace Prof. Shlomo Biederman who completed a 5-year tenure.

Since 2007, Professor Eyal Zisser has served as the head of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle East and African Studies and is also the head of the Suleiman Demiral Program for Modern Turkish Studies at Tel Aviv University. Before that, he served as the head of the Department of History of Israel and Africa (2004-2008). In addition to these, he serves as the head of the master's degree program for seniors in the field of contemporary MAZAT, which he established in 2005.

Prof. Zisser is a graduate of the first degree studies with honors in the Department of History of the Mazat and in the Department of Arabic Language and Literature at Tel Aviv University (1982-1985). He also did his master's (1985-1988-1988) and third (1992-1959) studies at Tel Aviv University. He wrote his master's thesis, which he completed with distinction, about the Israeli-Arab struggle over the Jordanian water and the inter-Arab system (1967-1943). The subject of his doctoral thesis, which he wrote under the guidance of Prof. Itamar Rabinowitz, is Lebanon: The Challenge of Independence, the year of the presidency of Bashara al-Khoury (1952-XNUMX).

Prof. Zisser's field of expertise is the contemporary MAZ, from the end of World War II to the present day. Along with dealing with questions of state, society and economy in the Middle East, questions of foreign policy and international relations, as well as questions of cultural and national identity, Prof. Zisser focuses on studying and dealing with the history of Syria and Lebanon.

Prof. Zisser is currently recognized as one of the leading researchers in Israel and among the academic community in the world in his field of work. He published seven books, and close to ninety articles and studies concerning Syria before gaining its independence (in 1946), especially since the Assad dynasty took power there (in November 1970). Prof. Zisser's research also deals with the history of Lebanon throughout the second half of the century.

Among Prof. Zisser's books: Assad's Syria - on the Crossroads (Ha Kibbutz Ma'oched, 1999); The Face of Syria, Regime, State and Society (The United Kibbutz, 2003); In the name of the father, Bashar's first years in power (Tel Aviv University Publishing House, 2004); Lebanon: Blood in the Cedars, from the Civil War to the Second Lebanon War (The United Kibbutz, 2009), as well as Lebanon: the Challenge of Independence (London, 2000); Asad's Legacy: Syria in Transition (New York, 2000); Commanding Syria: Bashar al-Assad's First Years in Power (London, 2006). It should be noted that Prof. Zisser's book about the first years of Bashar al-Assad's reign was translated into Arabic and published by the Egyptian book publishing house, Madbouli in 2006.

In recent years he has been a visiting professor at Cornell University in the USA as well as a research fellow at the Washington Institute for Middle East Policy in Washington, USA. He often lectures about his areas of expertise at international conferences and meetings at universities and research institutes around the world.