An Israeli History Professor on What He Teaches (and Learns)

Originally Published Oct 2, 2024

History professor Arie Dubnov can’t stand political settings filled with big egos. That’s why he became an academic.

Born and raised in rural Israel, Dubnov moved to the United States in 2009 to teach at Stanford. When he started his undergraduate studies, he was faced with a decision between two tracks of history that Israeli universities offered: general history and Jewish history. He chose general, because he wanted to “look beyond just Israel,” following his desire to understand the country he was from in a global context.

After finishing his studies, he worked in Israel, in the United States at Stanford University and eventually at The George Washington University. His class this semester, War & Peace in Israeli History, covers topics that have become more sensitive over the past year.

“I work in a specific subfield which is supercharged politically,” Dubnov said. The Israel-Hamas war has continuously escalated since October 7th, with historical narratives being contested and rewritten. His place in today’s academic world has changed, and so has his approach to teaching.

Dubnov’s own experience has been characterized by prejudices and assumptions of his political stance that he describes as “taking one dimension of identity and ignoring all the others.”

“When I’m in a room with pro-Palestinian activists and Middle Eastern studies professors, they assume automatically that I am here to defend Israel, I’m here as a fig leaf for the occupation,” Dubnov said.

“At the same time, when I am entering a room with many American Jews or Israeli Jews that could be right wing, they automatically see ‘Oh he’s a professor so he’s a radical, of course he’s attracted to dangerous ideas and brainwashing the minds of young students.’”

These experiences in taking space in political settings caused him to reflect on what he could actively do to push his students to think critically, something he highly values in education. Being a historian, it was difficult for him to accept that students and young people often would interpret the past through a non-critical lens, ignoring the nuances that come with chronicled events.

“I am an activist. But there is a red line I will never cross, which is turning to activism before research.” said Dubnov.

He believes that there is an epidemic of having a conclusion before examining the question, what he described as “throwing a dart before drawing the bull’s eye.”

By approaching his curriculum in this new light, he has been able to highlight Israeli history from different viewpoints, assigning readings by a diverse roster of academics from several cultures, places and time periods. Students’ workload doesn’t only consist of readings, but of critical response papers, in which they must show their own thought process in accepting or rejecting an author’s claims.

“Being from Israel, I definitely expected Professor Dubnov to be affected by personal sentiment during teaching,” said Alex Gilbert, a student in Dubnov’s class. “But honestly, he remains unbiased and allows students to express their ideas without any judgment.”

Students in the professor’s class care deeply about the topic and the manner in which it is taught, leading many to actively participate in creating an environment in which all students feels comfortable and want to collectively learn.

“This class isn’t just about the history of warfare and the countless conflicts since Israel’s birth, it’s about learning how to be good historians even when people disagree on the facts.” said Lawrence Popowich, another student in the class. “Professor Dubnov is great, he really encourages us to put in a lot of effort, and we do, because for a lot of us it’s really a personal thing.”

Dubnov’s class isn’t the only one dealing with real-life issues relating to the Israel-Hamas war. Across campus in the basement of the international affairs building, a Media in a Free Society lecture went off track, with students discussing the conflict amongst each other. The professor had to redirect students to the course material after the debate escalated. A student involved in the university’s Student Coalition for Justice in Palestine was in that class, seeing the redirect as part of the university’s efforts to suppress pro-Palestinian activism.

“This is what GW has been doing, shutting out conversations about what really matters to us. Sometimes it’s okay to stray away from the course’s content if it means a lot to the students in the course.” said the student, who wishes to remain anonymous due to fear of the university’s monitoring of pro-Palestinian activists’ online presence. “It’s not just Jewish kids in Jewish classes who are personally involved in the conflict, so are Palestinians, and Muslims, and anyone who feels the cause is close to home.”

With discourse centered around conflict occupying a large part of Professor Dubnov’s life as an academic, he tries to spend a lot of time reflecting on the positive.

“I could b*tch from here to Calcutta about problems in higher education and G.W. No institution is perfect.” Dubnov said. “But I suffer from first world problems. I have a job, job security, nice students, a nice office. I’m not worried for my life, I’m not in a war zone.”

In a world of conflict, Professor Arie Dubnov practices gratefulness and preaches satisfaction stemming from the simple luxuries of life. When asked to describe himself in a few words, he simply answered “lucky bastard”.