Who am I?

Currently I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, which I joined as a staff member in 2007. Between 2017-2022 I served as the Head of the Department and since early 2020 I have been the Vice Dean of the Humanities for Research.

My research centers on the Ottoman Empire during the 19^th century, and in
particular on Greater Syria. My work deals with Ottoman petitions, Ottoman maps, Greater Syria in the 19^th century, the rural population of Palestine, the early Jewish-Arab conflict, the Young Turk Revolution of 1908, and Gaza during the late Ottoman period. Recently I completed a large project on late Ottoman Gaza conducted jointly with Prof. Johann Buessow of the University of Bochum, which is supported by a grant from the German-Israel Foundation (GIF). The goal was to rekindle interest in this important city that has been forgotten in research, which tends to focus instead on Jerusalem and the port cities of Jaffa, Haifa and Beirut. This massive project integrates Ottoman sources, materials in Arabic, some of which have never been published, maps, and aerial photos, while using digital humanities tools to analyze all the data. The project’s website can be visited here, to get an impression of the project and its aims: https://gaza.ub.rub.de/gaza. Currently I conduct research on

Ottoman Beersheba during the late Ottoman period together with Prof. Johann Buessow from the University of Bochum, which is financed by Gerda Henkel Foundation. Another project I am involved with is research on the remnants of the bustanim in the southern coastal plain, together with Prof. Guy Baroz, which is financed by the Israeli Ministry of Science. 

I work extensively on documents housed in the Ottoman Archive in Istanbul. My studies aim to highlight the importance of combining Ottoman materials and the Ottoman perspective in general in research on late Ottoman Greater Syria, which is all too often viewed through national prisms.

In the framework of my work at the University of Haifa, I am committed to making findings accessible to the
general public. To do so I have organized a series of conferences and symposia that are open to the general public on the Ottoman period in Palestine and Greater Syria, and have curated three exhibitions on Ottoman petitions (2013), Ottoman maps (2016), and the city of Gaza during the late Ottoman period (2020). 
During my free time I am a great fan of traveling, hiking, and photography and spending time with my two daughters.

Academic Background

I earned my B.A. in 2000 from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Middle Eastern Studies and Geography. To this day many of my publications deal with Middle Eastern history and geography. I did my M.A. and Ph.D. in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago where I graduated in 2007. That same year I joined the staff of the Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at the University of Haifa where I have taught Ottoman and Turkish history ever since. In the framework of my research I often consult documents housed in the Ottoman Archive in Istanbul, where most of the materials for my research are located.

Publications

 I am an author of a book on petitions sent from Ottoman Palestine to the Sultan in Istanbul at the end of

the 19^th century: Petitioning the Sultan: Protests and Justice in Late Ottoman Palestine (London: I.B.TAURIS, 2013): https://www.academia.edu/4980345/Petitioning_the_Sultan_Protests_and_Justice_in_Late_Ottoman_Palestine_London_I_B_TAURIS_2013_xiv_325pp_including_tables_and_appendices

 My second book, which focuses on Gaza during the late Ottoman period, is due to be published next year: Yuval

Ben-Bassat and Johan Buessow, Late Ottoman Gaza: An Eastern Mediterranean Hub in Transformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (forthcoming, 2023).

 I have also edited three books. The first, co-edited with Prof. Eyal Ginio from the Hebrew University, is based

on the proceedings of an international conference held in Jerusalem in 2008 to commemorate the centennial of the Young Turk Revolution of 1908 entitled Rethinking Late Ottoman Palestine: The Young Turk Rule, 1908-1918 (London: I.B. TAURIS, 2011,310pp.): 

https://www.academia.edu/4980354/Rethinking_Late_Ottoman_Palestine_The_Period_of_Young_Turk_Rule_Eds_Yuval_Ben_Bassat_and_Eyal_Ginio_London_I_B_TAURIS_2011_310_pp

 I also edited a collective volume in honor of Prof. Amalia Levanoni who taught Mamluk history for several

decades at the University of Haifa and is considered one of the leading international experts in this field: Developing Perspectives in Mamluk History (Leiden: Brill, 2017, 414pp.):

https://www.academia.edu/33346419/Developing_Perspectives_in_Mamluk_History_Essays_in_Honor_of_Amalia_Levanoni_Ledien_Brill_2017_448pp_ed_Yuval_Ben_Bassat

 The last book I edited focuses on cities in Greater Syria during the late Ottoman period: Yuval Ben-Bassat and Johann Buessow (eds.), From the Household to the Wider World: Local Perspectives on Urban Institutions in Late Ottoman Bilad al-Sham (Tuebingen: Tuebingen University Press, 2022, 348pp.).

In addition, I have published some forty articles in leading journals dealing with the history and geography

of the Middle East, cartography, and the history of the yishuv.