40 Under 40: Geoffrey Levin

Even in a place like Atlanta, you’d be hard pressed to find a more dedicated scholar of Jewish History than Professor Geoffery Levin.

Levin became interested in Jewish studies from an early age, which led him to switch from a public school to at a Jewish high school near Chicago, where he grew up. He ended up pursuing a PhD in Jewish history at New York University.

In 2020, he completed a postdoc at Harvard’s Center for Jewish Studies, and since then has worked at Emory, where his day job is essentially researching the Jewish past and teaching undergraduates about the modern Jewish experience in Israel, the broader Middle East, and the United States. He has also held research fellowships at both Harvard and Oxford.

In addition to my position as Jay and Leslie Cohen Associate Professor of Middle Eastern and Jewish studies, this year, he is also the Director of Undergraduate Studies at Emory’s Tam Institute for Jewish Studies, helping guide students who have declared themselves for Jewish History majors and minors. He also excitedly noted a new course he is teaching this year on Mizrahi history.

“[We’re] looking at questions of identity, of the challenges of migration, and really giving students the human stories of this population which a lot of Jewish communal education hasn’t focused on in the past. So, my students are often learning lots of things, for instance how the Holocaust affected Jews in North Africa and not just Europe.”

Outside of research and education, Levin and his family have been involved in two Jewish communities based in the east side of Atlanta/Decatur, Tish and Ma’a lot, although many may recognize him from giving the occasional talk at their synagogue.