Education

• Ph.D., History, University of Wisconsin, 2002
• B.A., History, University of Illinois, 1993

About

Joshua Shanes is an historian of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Jewish history in East Central Europe and its emigrant communities. His research focuses on the process of Jews negotiating new identities under the impact of modernization. His first book, Diaspora Nationalism and Jewish Identity in Habsburg Galicia (Cambridge University Press, 2012), traces the contested process by which nationhood became a key category of Jewish identity in the early twentieth century. It upsets notions of Jewish exceptionalism by demonstrating that Zionism, like its non-Jewish counterparts, was first and foremost a movement to construct a national identity for Jews, to forge a modern Jewish cultural nation while simultaneously masking its very modernity. It shows that Zionism was not about escaping Diaspora existence but rather normalizing it. 

Professor Shanes is currently completing two book-length projects. The first is a history of Jewish Orthodoxy that traces the emergence and evolution of the label - and the communities that claim it - from Germany and Hungary into Eastern Europe and eventually America and Israel, explaining how a traditional culture shared unreflexively by most Jews evolved into a self-conscious, voluntary religio-political identity maintained by a determined minority that viewed itself as authentically “religious.” He is also now completing, together with Professor Naomi Seidman, a reader of Orthodox texts. It will offer over two dozen sources, many translated for the first time, including many previously unknown texts by women.

His work can also frequently be found in popular publications such as The Washington Post, Slate, The Conversation, Haaretz, The Forward, and others.

A native of the Chicago suburbs, he completed his B.A. (1993) at the University of Illinois and his Ph.D. (2002) at the University of Wisconsin. Before joining UC-Davis in 2025, he served as Professor of Jewish Studies, and Director of the Arnold Center for Israel Studies, at the College of Charleston. In his spare time, he enjoys text study, political activism, and bridge.

Research and Teaching Focus

Modern Jewish history; Jewish politics; 19th- and 20th century Europe; Holocaust; antisemitism; comparative nationalism; Habsburg history

Select Publications

Books

• Diaspora Nationalism and Jewish Identity in Habsburg Galicia (Cambridge University Press, 2012)
• On the Margins of Orthodoxy, edited with Zalman Newfield, Jessica Lang, and Glenn Dynner (forthcoming with Academic Studies Press) 

Journal Article and Book Chapters

• “Contemporary Chabad-Lubavitch” in On the Margins of Orthodoxy (forthcoming with Academic Studies Press)
• “The Politics of Defining Antisemitism,” Shofar Vol. 40, Issue 3 (2022): 188-198
• “The Bloody Elections in Drohobycz: Violence, Urban Politics and National Memory in an Imperial Borderland,” Austrian History Yearbook (2022): 121-149
• “Orthodoxy as a German-Jewish Legacy” in German-Jewish Studies: Next Generations, ed. Kelly Wallach and Aya Elyada (Berghahn, 2022), 58-75
• “The Orthodox Moment,” Jewish Quarterly Review, April 26, 2021 (on-line forum)
• “‘Hands up! Don’t shoot! We want Summer Camp!’: Orthodox Jewry in the Age of COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter,” Jewish Social Studies 26:1 (Fall, 2020): 143-155
• “Yeshayahu Leibowitz,” in The New Jewish Canon, ed. Yehuda Kurtzer and Claire Sufrin (Academic Studies Press, 2020), 40-45
• “Netanyahu, Orban and the Resurgence of Anti-Semitism: Lessons of the Last Century,” Shofar 37.1 (March, 2019): 108-120
• “Israel Waldman” in Österreichisches Biographisches Lexikon, ed. Hubert Bergmann (Austrian Academy of Sciences, 2018), 442-3
• “Jewish Press and Periodicals” and “Memory Books” in Routledge Handbook of Jewish History and Historiography, ed. Dean Bell (Routledge, 2018), 446-457
• “Galicia” and “Bund” in Cambridge Dictionary of Judaism and Jewish Culture, ed. Judith Baskin (Cambridge University Press, 2011)
• “Ahron Marcus: Portrait of a Zionist Hasid,” Jewish Social Studies 16.3 (Spring/Summer, 2010): 116-161
• “An Unlikely Alliance: The 1907 Ukrainian-Jewish Electoral Coalition” (co-authored with Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern), Nations and Nationalism 15.3 (July, 2009): 483-505
• “Joseph Bloch,” “Mikra Kodesh,” “Żydowska Partja Socjalistyczna,” “Buczacz,” “Ivano-Frankivsk,” “Kolomyja” and
• “Nathan Birnbaum” in The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, ed. Gershon Hundert (Yale University Press, 2007)
• “National Regeneration in the Ghetto: The Jewish Turnbewegung in Galicia,” in Jews, Sports and the Rites of Citizenship, ed. Jack Kugelmass (University of Illinois Press, 2007), 75-94