Biography 

Caroline Kahlenberg is a scholar of Jewish and Middle Eastern history. Her teaching and research interests center on 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. Her current book project focuses on Arabic-speaking Jews in early 20th century Palestine. 

Kahlenberg earned her B.A. in History from Middlebury College and her Ph.D. in History and Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University, and she is the author of several scholarly articles, including “How the Locals Grew an Accent: The Sounds of Modern Hebrew in Early Twentieth-Century Palestine” (Jewish Social Studies), “New Arab Maids: Domestic Work, ‘New Arab Women,’ and National Memory in British Mandate Palestine” (International Journal of Middle East Studies), and “The Star of David in a Cedar Tree: Jewish Students and Zionism at the American University of Beirut (1908-1948)” (Middle Eastern Studies). Kahlenberg's work has been supported by the Posen Foundation, the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture and the Council of American Overseas Research Centers. 

This fall, Kahlenberg will teach two courses: “The Making of the Modern Middle East” for the Department of History and “Palestine/Israel Through Literature and Film” for the Department of Middle Eastern & South Asian Languages and Culture.

Publications

Refereed Journal Articles

“The Girl with a Bomb in Her Basket: Age, Race, and Jewish Terror on Trial in British-Mandate Palestine” (Jewish Social Studies, 2024) 

“The Predicament of a Palestinian Hebraist, 1912-1979,” Jewish Quarterly Review 114:1 (Winter 2024): 141-177. 

“How the Locals Grew an Accent: The Sounds of Modern Hebrew in Early Twentieth-Century Palestine,” Jewish Social Studies 28:3 (Fall 2023), 105-142. 

“Peddlers and the Policing of National Indifference in Palestine, 1920-1948,” History Workshop Journal 90 (2020), 115-141.

“New Arab Maids: Domestic Work, ‘New Arab Women,’ and National Memory in British Mandate Palestine,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 53:2 (2020), 449-467. 

“The Star of David in a Cedar Tree: Jewish Students and Zionism at the American University of Beirut (1908-1948),” Middle Eastern Studies 55:4 (Feb. 2019), 570-589.

“The Tarbush Transformation: Oriental Jewish Men and the Significance of Headgear in Ottoman and British Mandate Palestine,” Journal of Social History 52:4 (Summer 2019) 1212-1249.

“‘The Gospel of Health’: American Missionaries and the Transformation of Ottoman/Turkish Women’s Bodies, 1890-1932,” Gender & History 28:1 (April 2016), 150-176.