Dr. Alan Verskin

Biography

Alan Verskin is the Samuel J. Zacks Chair in Jewish History at the University of Toronto, where his research areas include religious, legal, and social histories in Jewish and Islamic contexts, particularly during the Middle Ages and the nineteenth century. He is particularly interested in themes surrounding travel, translation, migration, and the intellectual responses of religious communities to persecution and minority status. Verskin’s notable works, such as "Oppressed Land: Fatwas on Muslims Living Under Non-Muslim Rule from the Middle Ages to the Present" and "The Diary of a Black Jewish Messiah: The Sixteenth-Century Journey of David Reubeni through Africa, the Middle East, and Europe," examine the complexities of Muslim responses to conquest and the colonial experience, as well as the Jewish reactions to Iberian forced conversion. His studies delve into 19th-century Jewish responses to European political and cultural imperialism, focusing on groups such as the Alliance Israélite Universelle and the connections with Jewish explorers and the local Middle Eastern Jewish communities. Verskin holds degrees from the University of Toronto, University of Chicago, and Princeton University and has taught at institutions including Macalester College and Columbia University, while also being a fellow at the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.

Research Interests