Alan Verskin

Alan Verskin is a Professor and the Samuel J. Zacks Chair of Jewish History at the University of Toronto. He holds cross-appointments at the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies and focuses on religious, legal, and social history across Jewish and Islamic contexts from the Middle Ages to the 19th century. His work emphasizes marginalized first-person narratives and cross-community intellectual migration.

Education:

• PhD, Princeton University
• MA, Princeton University
• MA, University of Chicago
• BA, University of Toronto

Research Interests span Jewish and Islamic history, translation studies, and Orientalism. His scholarship addresses responses to conquest and colonialism, interfaith intellectual networks, and European imperial impacts on Jewish communities. Recent work analyzes medieval legal adaptations, messianic movements, and critiques of Orientalism through indigenous perspectives.

Publications include Diary of a Black Jewish Messiah (2023), A Vision of Yemen (2019), and Islamic Law and the Crisis of the Reconquista (2015), reflecting his focus on cross-cultural legal and theological interactions, forced conversion impacts, and pre-modern diaspora dynamics.

Scientific Awards:

• Fellow, Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies

Teaching History includes Macalester College, Columbia University, and the University of Rhode Island, with expertise in historical narratives of persecution, minorityhood, and cultural resilience.