Benjamin Z. Kedar

Benjamin Z. Kedar (born 2 September 1938) is professor emeritus of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He was president of the international Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East (1995–2002), chairman of the board of the Israel Antiquities Authority (2000–12) and vice-president of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities (2010–15).

Kedar was born in Nitra, Czechoslovakia to Dr Samuel Kraus and Dr Lydie Jeiteles-Kraus. Both his parents were physicians. In 1944–45, his family avoided deportation to Auschwitz by hiding for seven months with Slovak peasants. He immigrated to Israel with the Youth Aliyah in 1949. His parents arrived about two months later, and after a few months he went to live with them in Kfar Netter in the Sharon Plain. In 1952, he completed elementary school in Even Yehuda, and in 1956 the Fifth Municipal High School in Tel Aviv. He earned a BA in history and sociology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he continued to graduate studies.

Kedar wrote his MA thesis under the supervision of Joshua Prawer (1964–1965). During the Lavon Affair, he was among the leaders of the "Student Movement for Democracy," that opposed David Ben-Gurion's purported authoritarianism. He wrote his PhD thesis on medieval history at Yale University, under the supervision of Roberto Sabatino Lopez, submitting his dissertation in 1969.

...
Wikipedia