Hillel Cohen

Hillel Cohen-Bar (born in Jerusalem, 1961) is an Israeli scholar who studies and writes about Jewish-Arab relations in Palestine/Israel. He is an associated professor at the Department of Islam and Middle East Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the head of the Cherrick Center for the Study of Zionism and the State of Israel at that university.

Cohen is especially familiar with east Jerusalem, the topic of his book, Kikar Hashuk Reka (The Marketplace is Empty or: The Rise and Fall of Arab Jeruslaem), because of the years he spent as a correspondent for east Jerusalem affairs for the Israeli weekly Kol Ha'ir. He published extensively on the Palestinian internal refugees and on the 1948 war. Two of his books deal with Palestinian collaborators and the Israeli security agencies, using methodology that can be described as history-from-below. The Jerusalem Post calls his books "an accessible mixture of academic research and vivid journalistic reporting. Cohen manages to show empathy when relating human issues, but maintains a professional distance regarding events."

He first became known in other countries in 2008 when his book Army of Shadows, Palestinian Collaboration with Zionism, 1917-1948 was published with the University of California Press. His book Good Arabs: The Israeli Security Services and the Israeli Arabs was published with the same press. His latest book Year Zero of the Arab-Israeli Conflict was published by Brandeis University Press, 2015.

Bibliography

• The Present Absentee: Palestinian Refugees in Israel Since 1948 (Hebrew, Arabic)
• Good Arabs: The Israeli Security Services and the Israeli Arabs ערבים טובים (Hebrew 2006, English 2010)
• Army of Shadows, Palestinian Collaboration with Zionism, 1917–1948 (2004 Hebrew, 2008 English)
• The Rise and Fall of Arab Jerusalem (2007 Hebrew, 2011 English)
• Year Zero of the Arab-Israeli Conflict 1929 תרפ"ט שנת האפס בסכסוך היהודי ערבי (Hebrew 2013, 2015 English)