D Gershon Lewental is a cultural historian of the Middle East, focusing on how societies use religion, memory, and conflict to define and maintain their identities. He teaches in the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel, and in the Department of International & Area Studies at the University of Oklahoma (since 2012). He earned his bachelor of arts degree (magna cum laude) from Cornell University and his doctorate in Middle Eastern history from Brandeis University. His fields of specialisation include early Islamic history and historiography, Iranian history, the Bahaʾi faith, Ottoman Jewry, and Israeli society.