Abigail is lecturer at the Department of History at MIT, and will be moving back to Israel soon to become the director of the "Neighbors in the Mediterranean" Department at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute. She is also the chief editor of the Journal of Levantine Studies.

Abigail Jacobson is a historian working on social and urban history of late Ottoman and Mandatory Palestine and the Eastern Mediterranean. Her main research interest is the history of ethnically and nationally mixed spaces and communities, especially during times of war and conflict. Her first book is entitled From Empire to Empire: Jerusalem between Ottoman and British Rule (Syracuse UP, 2011). She recently finished a second book manuscript, written together with Dr. Moshe Naor, entitled Oriental Neighbors: Middle Eastern Jews and Arabs in Mandatory Palestine.

This event is co-sponsored by the Center for Palestine Studies and the Middle East Institute.