Yair Mintzker

Biography

Prof. Yair Mintzker studies the history of early modern and modern Germany, with particular interest in the Sattelzeit (1750-1850). He is the author of two prize-winning books: The Defortification of the German City, 1689-1866 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012; paperback 2014), which tells the story of the metamorphosis of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century German cities from walled to defortified (open) places; and The Many Deaths of Jew Süss (New York: Princeton University Press, 2017), which is a retelling of the trial and execution of Joseph Süss Oppenheimer, the notorious “Jew Süss.”

Born and raised in Jerusalem, Mintzker is a graduate of the prestigious Israeli Arts and Sciences Academy, one of Israel's most highly selective high schools. He studied at the Adi Lautman Interdisciplinary Program at Tel-Aviv University and received his M.A. in history from Tel-Aviv University in 2003. He completed his Ph.D. at Stanford University in 2009 under the supervision of James J. Sheehan and that same year began teaching as assistant professor at Princeton University's history department. He became associate professor of history in 2015 and full professor in 2017. He still teaches at Princeton.

Mintzker is the recipient of several prizes, including the National Jewish Book Award in history (2017), the Urban History Association best book prize (2014), and the Fritz Stern Dissertation Prize for the best dissertation in German history (2010). Over the years, he received prestigious fellowships from the DAAD, the Whiting Foundation, the Stanford Humanities Center, the Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton, and the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin.