Fred A. Lazin

The Lynn & Lloyd Hurst Family Professor Emeritus

of Local Government

Ben Gurion University of the Negev

Schusterman Visiting Professor of Israel Studies

American University

Fred Lazin's Bio

Fred Lazin was born in Boston and grew up in Sharon Massachusetts. An Eagle Scout, in high school he served as New England Regional President of Young Judaea and attended Camp Tel Yehuda. After high school he participated in the Young Judaea Year Course in Israel.

He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated Cum Laude in Government and History at the University of Massachusetts where he served as president of Hillel. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago. He joined the faculty at Ben Gurion University (BGU) in Israel in 1975. At BGU, he established an Interdisciplinary Urban Studies Program and the Department of General Studies and chaired the Department of Behavioral Science. He served as the Director of the Hubert H. Humphrey Center of Social Ecology and the Overseas Student Program (OSP). During his tenure at OSP, the student body increased five fold. In 1991 Fred became the Lynn and Lloyd Hurst Family Professor of Local Government. He recently completed two terms as Chair of the Department of Politics and Government at BGU.

Fred has taught at the Hebrew University, NYU, UCLA, GWU, Cornell University, Tufts and City University of New York (John Jay College and Hunter College). He has served as a Visiting Scholar at universities in Sweden, France, China, Czech Republic, Canada and the US.

Professor Lazin has authored over sixty scholarly articles and chapters in books. He has written and edited ten books dealing with public policy in the United States, Israel and developing countries, Israeli politics and society and Jews in American politics. He received the Israel Political Science Association's award for the outstanding English language book on politics in 2005 for The Struggle for Soviet Jewry in American Politics; Israel versus the American Jewish Establishment. His pioneering research on the response of American Jewish organizations to German Jewish refugees in the 1930s opened a new field in Holocaust Studies. His latest book Higher Education and Equality of Opportunity: Cross-National Perspectives was published in October 2010.

Fred’s current research project involves a study of the role of the American Jewish Committee in the struggle for Soviet Jewry, its lobbying efforts in Washington and its ties with Israel. He is also researching the role of Christian clergy in the struggle for Soviet Jewry.

Fred is married to Rachel Dabi Lazin. They have three children.

www.fredlazin.com lazin@bgu.ac.il tel. 212 262 3970 917 699 4381 (updated July 20, 2011).

Click For CV

[Print This Page]