Schneer Addresses British Academy on Centenary of Balfour Declaration

Posted November 7, 2017

Jonathan Schneer, professor in the School of History and Sociology, addressed the British Academy on the centenary of the Balfour Declaration, a landmark document which committed Britain to supporting the establishment in Palestine of “a National Home for the Jewish people.”

In his award-winning 2010 book, The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict  (Penguin Random House, 2010), Schneer highlighted new archival material and created a book illuminating the origins of the Middle East conflict that drives modern world events. Britain’s Balfour Declaration, issued on November 2, 1917, was a seed of the conflict. Schneer spoke to the British Academy, the most prestigious scholarly body in Great Britain on November 2, 2017.

Schneer’s lecture at the British Academy caps a seven year juggernaut of awards and recognition for his work on the Balfour Declaration. The book was published by presses in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Turkey. It has been widely featured in top-tier media including the New York Times and the Washington Post and in journals around the world. Schneer has lectured on his Balfour declaration research dozens of times in the U.S., U.K., Israel, and France.

On November 2, he also spoke at a conference sponsored by British-Israeli communications Research (BICOM).  On October 7 he spoke at the British Library in London at an event sponsored by the Middle East Monitor (MEMO). In recent months he has conducted numerous radio, film, and print interviews, and more are in the offing. He is taking part in scholarly conferences about the declaration in the U.S. and U.K., and he delivered the keynote address at a Princeton conference dedicated to the Balfour Declaration.

PRESS AND RECENT/UPCOMING EVENTS FEATURING DR. SCHNEER

• Palestine, Britain, and the Balfour Declaration 100 Years On (British Library)  [Additional event information]
• The Balfour Declaration and Its Legacy (UCLA)
• Talk in Northampton, Mass., at Congregation B’nai Israel
• Interview of Dr. Schneer in Fathom Magazine