Daniel Heller

Dr. Daniel Kupfert Heller is the Kronhill Senior Lecturer in East European Jewish History at Monash University’s Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation. His areas of research specialization are East European Jewish history, the history of humanitarian aid and international development, and the history of Zionism and modern Israel. 

Daniel received his PhD in 2012 from Stanford University, where he was awarded the annual prize for best written dissertation in the History Department. Before arriving at Monash, he was an assistant professor at McGill University, offering courses related to East European Jewish History, Israel and the Middle East. In recognition for his outstanding teaching, he received the 2016 H. Noel Fieldhouse Award for Distinguished Teaching, awarded annually to one professor in McGill University’s Faculty of Arts. In 2017, he was the recipient of the Principal’s Prize for Excellence in Teaching, awarded annually to one assistant professor across all faculties in McGill University.

Daniel’s first book, Jabotinsky’s Children: Polish Jews and the Rise of Right-Wing Zionism, appeared in August 2017 with Princeton University Press. Drawing upon original research in Polish, Israeli and American archives, the book challenged the scholarly consensus that Israeli militarism was principally the creation of Jews born in 1930s Palestine. Jabotinsky's Children instead uncovered the decisive influence of Polish Jews and Polish politics on right-wing Zionist attitudes towards democracy and approaches to the use of force. Recovering the voices of ordinary Polish Jewish youth through their letters, diaries and autobiographies, the study also painted a vivid portrait of their turbulent lives on the eve of the Holocaust. 

The book received outstanding reviews in publications such as the Times Literary Supplement and The Chronicle for Higher Education. It also won several highly competitive international book prizes, including the Association for Jewish Studies' Jordan Schnitzer Award in the category of Modern Jewish History and Culture: Europe and Israel. Articles related to research for this project appeared in the Journal for Israeli History, AJS Perspectives and Kwartalnik Historii Żydów. 

Daniel is currently working on his second book, which explores the rise of Israeli humanitarianism and development aid in the Global South. He also writes about the politics of humanitarian and development aid in Poland’s Jewish communities between the Two World Wars. An article related to this research recently appeared with the peer-reviewed journal Jewish History. In 2017 Daniel’s research on Jewish involvement in humanitarian aid and development received major Canadian government grants at the federal and provincial level. He has also received fellowships from organizations promoting Jewish scholarship, including the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture.