The American University of Beirut (AUB) has long served as a hub of Arab national and cultural identity. Throughout the twentieth century, scores of Middle Eastern politicians and intellectuals graduated from its halls. This talk explores AUB’s little-known Jewish and Zionist history. In the 1930s and early 1940s, Jews formed about ten percent of the university’s student body, including a small but vocal group of Zionist students. By examining dynamic Zionist-Arab encounters beyond the borders of Mandate Palestine—which included daily student interactions, institutional collaborations, and conflict in the leadup to the 1948 War—this talk traces a history of campus cooperations and frictions that has important resonances today.

Caroline Kahlenberg is an Assistant Professor at the University of Virginia, where she teaches courses on modern Jewish and Middle Eastern history. Her research interests include the history of Israel/Palestine, the relationship between history and memory, gender and material culture, Mizrahi Jewish history, and the history of minorities in the Eastern Mediterranean. Kahlenberg earned her B.A. in History from Middlebury College and her Ph.D. in History and Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University.