David Biale

David Biale is an American historian specializing in Jewish history.

Biale earned a degree in history from the University of California, Berkeley in 1971, and remained at the institution to complete a master's degree in modern European history in 1972. During his doctoral studies, Biale specialized in Jewish history, and obtained a Ph.D. in the subject from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1977. From 1977 to 1986 he taught in the history department at SUNY Binghamton and directed the Jewish Studies Program. Between 1986 and 1999, Biale was the Koret Professor of Jewish History and director of the Center for Jewish Studies at the Graduate Theological Union. He subsequently joined the University of California, Davis, as Emanuel Ringelblum Distinguished Professor of Jewish History. Biale received a Guggenhem fellowship in 1999. He is the author of 10 books in the field of Jewish Studies including 2 biographies of Gershom Scholem, “Power and Powerlessness in Jewish History,” “Not in the Heavens: the Tradition of Jewish Secular Thought,” “Blood and Belief: The Circulation of a Symbol Between Jews and Christians,” “Eros and the Jews,” and “Jewish Culture Between Canon and Heresy,” among others. He is the Editor-in-Chief of two seminal multi-author volumes: “Hasidism: A New History,” and “Cultures of the Jews,” and Co-Editor of “Insider/Outsider: American Jews and Multiculturalism.” Biale won the National Jewish Book Award three times and the UC Davis Prize for Scholarly Achievement and Undergraduate Teaching.