Mark H. Gelber

Mark. H. Gelber (Hebrew: מרק גלבר; born 1951, Brooklyn, New York) is an American-Israeli scholar of comparative literature and German-Jewish literature and culture.

Education He received his B.A. Letters and German (Phi Beta Kappa, Wesleyan University). He also studied at the University of Bonn, the University of Grenoble, and Tel Aviv University. He was accepted for graduate studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences at Yale University and he received his M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. from Yale University.

Positions and awards In 1980 he became a post-doctoral lecturer at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, in the Department of Foreign Literatures and Linguistics. Except for guest professorships and research fellowships abroad, he has been affiliated there since that time.

From 2008-2018 Gelber directed the Research Center for Austrian and German Studies at Ben-Gurion University. He was twice Chair of the Department of Foreign Literatures and Linguistics and was appointed Director of the Overseas Student Programs and the Center for International Student Programs at BGU (1996–2004). He established and directed the Internationale Sommeruniversität für Hebräisch, Jüdische Studien und Israelwissenschaften in Beer Sheva (1998–2004, 2009). In November 2008 he was appointed Dean of International Academic Affairs at Ben-Gurion University. In 2009 he was elected to the executive board of the Leo Baeck Institute, Jerusalem, where he served from 2009–2017.

In 2001 Gelber was elected to life membership in the Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung (Darmstadt).

A Festschrift in honor of Gelber's emeritate was presented in 2018: Wegweiser und Grenzgänger: Studien zur deutsch-jüdischen Kultur- und Literaturgeschichte. Eine Festschrift für Mark H. Gelber(Böhlau Verlag). A symposium in honor of Gelber, entitled "Austrian/German-Jewish Studies and Their Future," was held at Ben-Gurion University in October, 2018.