Norton Mezvinsky

Norton Mezvinsky
Norton Mezvinsky speaks, March, 2012 in Washington, D.C.
Born	1932 (age 84–85)
Alma mater	University of Wisconsin–Madison Harvard University
Occupation	Academic
Spouse(s)	Shirley Lauro
Parent(s)	Abe Mezvinsky
Relatives	Edward Mezvinsky (brother) Marc Mezvinsky (nephew)

Norton Mezvinsky (born 1932) is an American historian, professor, and author. He is a Distinguished University Professor, Emeritus, Central Connecticut State University and is the president of the International Council for Middle East Studies, an academic think tank in Washington, D.C. He has written numerous published books, articles and book reviews that deal with various aspects of the Arab-Israeli conflict and Zionism.

Norton Mezvinsky is from a well-known Iowa family long involved in Jewish politics. His father, Abe, was for decades a grocer and leading businessman in Ames, Iowa, and was famous for his philanthropy. Norton studied history at Wisconsin University under George Mosse, Howard K. Beale and William Appleman Williams. At the same time he corresponded with rabbi Elmer Berger, with whom he was to work and come very close to. He completed his Phd at Harvard University in 1960, while working on a sociological study on American Jewish Self-Segregation which the American Council for Judaism had commissioned.

Norton's brother, Edward Mezvinsky, was an Iowa state representative, a member of the United States House of Representatives and the U.S. Representative to the United Nations Human Rights Committee in the 1970s. His brother, Edward, was prosecuted for fraud and spent time in prison many years later. His nephew, Marc, is married to Chelsea Clinton, the daughter of Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton.

Mezvinsky was married to the playwright and novelist, Shirley Lauro, and has one daughter with her. There was apparently a second marriage because two issues of the Directory of Scholars in the Humanities, which for those years was available as a print edition only, list him as married well after the divorce to Lauro.