Avner Falk (; born 1943) is an Israeli clinical

psychologist A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and explanation, interpretatio ...

and author. Falk has written psychoanalytic studies of Jewish and Israeli leaders,

Jewish history Jewish history is the history of the Jews, their Jewish peoplehood, nation, Judaism, religion, and Jewish culture, culture, as it developed and interacted with other peoples, religions and cultures. Jews originated from the Israelites and H ...

, the

Arab–Israeli conflict The Arab–Israeli conflict is a geopolitical phenomenon involving military conflicts and a variety of disputes between Israel and many Arab world, Arab countries. It is largely rooted in the historically supportive stance of the Arab League ...

antisemitism Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...

and

Islamic terrorism Islamic terrorism (also known as Islamist terrorism, radical Islamic terrorism, or jihadist terrorism) refers to terrorist acts carried out by fundamentalist militant Islamists and Islamic extremists. Since at least the 1990s, Islami ...

Biography

Avner Falk grew up in Tel Aviv and studied psychology and clinical psychology at the

Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; ) is an Israeli public university, public research university based in Jerusalem. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Chaim Weizmann in July 1918, the public university officially opened on 1 April 1925. ...

(1960–1966) and at

Washington University in St. Louis Washington University in St. Louis (WashU) is a private research university in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Founded in 1853 by a group of civic leaders and named for George Washington, the university spans 355 acres across its Danforth ...

(1966–1970) where he received his Ph.D. in 1970. He returned to Israel in 1971 and worked as a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist in Jerusalem until 1995. He has published psychoanalytic biographies of

Moshe Dayan Moshe Dayan (; May 20, 1915 – October 16, 1981) was an Israeli military leader and politician. As commander of the Jerusalem front in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Chief of General Staff (Israel), Chief of the General Staff of the Israel Defe ...

David Ben-Gurion David Ben-Gurion ( ; ; born David Grün; 16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the primary List of national founders, national founder and first Prime Minister of Israel, prime minister of the State of Israel. As head of the Jewish Agency ...

Theodor Herzl Theodor Herzl (2 May 1860 – 3 July 1904) was an Austria-Hungary, Austro-Hungarian Jewish journalist and lawyer who was the father of Types of Zionism, modern political Zionism. Herzl formed the World Zionist Organization, Zionist Organizat ...

Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French general and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led Military career ...

and

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

. In 2005, his book ''Fratricide in the Holy Land: A Psychoanalytic View of the Arab-Israeli Conflict'' (2004) won the Outstanding Academic Title award from the American Library Association's ''Choice'' magazine. In July 2010 Falk was contacted by Hans-Joachim Lang, a Holocaust historian and journalist in the German university town of Tübingen, whose city government had just published the existence in its museum of a wooden Torah disc from Zgierz, the hometown of Falk's maternal family, which had been in its possession since 1994. It turned out that the disc was a relic from a Torah scroll that Falk's Polish-Jewish maternal grandfather, Jozef Cwi Szpiro (1880–1941), had donated to his Zgierz synagogue in 1927 in memory of his deceased parents, and that some time after 1939 came into the possession of Otto Michel (1903–1993), a well-known Tübingen university theologian, a former Nazi and SA member, who after the Second World War and the Holocaust became a Jewish Studies pioneer in Tübingen, and whose widow had given it to the city museum. Since then, Falk has been writing a psychohistorical book, which has also become a detective story, about when and how this relic of his grandfather's Torah scroll came into Michel's possession. Michel himself had said nothing about his Nazi past in his autobiography of 1989 and had apparently told no one about how he had come by the wooden Torah disc. In November 2011 Falk received this relic of his grandfather's Torah scroll from the mayor of Tübingen, Boris Palmer (born 1971), in a public ceremony in Tübingen's city hall, at which Falk delivered a German-language lecture on his findings entitled "Die Verneinung der Vergangenheit: Die Geschichte einer Thorarolle" ("The Denial of the Past: The Story of a Torah Scroll"). He continues his research for this book in the face of considerable resistance from some German archives.

Awards and critical acclaim

1987 Resident Scholar, Rockefeller Foundation Study and Conference Center, Bellagio, Italy 1997 Fellow of the International Napoleonic Society 1999 Featured Scholar, Clio's Psyche 2006 Outstanding Academic Title award for Fratricide in the Holy Land from the American Library Association's Choice magazine

Published works

Books 1985 משה דיין: האיש והאגדה. ביוגרפיה פסיכואנליטית oshe Dayan, the Man and the Myth: a Psychoanalytic Biography Jerusalem: Cana. Tel Aviv: Maariv Library. 1987 דוד מלך ישראל: ביוגרפיה פסיכואנליטית של דוד בן-גוריון avid King of Israel: a Psychoanalytic Biography of David Ben-Gurion Tel Aviv: Tammuz Publishing. 1993 ''Herzl, King of the Jews: a Psychoanalytic Biography of Theodor Herzl''. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America 1996 ''A Psychoanalytic History of the Jews.'' Madison, New Jersey: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. Cranbury, New Jersey & London: Associated University Presses 2004 ''Fratricide in the Holy Land: A Psychoanalytic View of the Arab-Israeli Conflict''. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press. 2007 ''Napoleon Against Himself: A Psychobiography''. Charlottesville, Virginia: Pitchstone Publishing. 2008 ''Antisemitism: A History and Psychoanalysis of Contemporary Hatred.'' Westport, Connecticut: Praeger. 2008 ''Islamic Terror: Conscious and Unconscious Motives.'' Westport, Connecticut: Praeger. 2010 ''Franks and Saracens: Reality and Fantasy in the Crusades.'' London: Karnac Books 2010 ''The Riddle of Barack Obama: A Psychobiography.'' Westport, Connecticut: Praeger

References

External links

Avner Falk's website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Falk, Avner Israeli psychologists 1943 births Living people Washington University in St. Louis alumni Hebrew University of Jerusalem alumni