Emory College historian Geoffrey Levin’s research into the intersection between Arabs, Jews and the United States has earned his selection as a 2025 Mellon Emerging Faculty Leader (MEFL) and the Koch Junior Fellowship in History at the University of Oxford for the 2025-26 academic year.
An assistant professor of Middle Eastern and Jewish studies, Levin is Emory’s third winner of the MEFL award that recognizes exceptional work and a commitment to a breadth of perspectives in the humanities or social sciences.
Levin will apply both the MEFL and the Koch fellowship — a new award funded by British philanthropist Richard Koch that emphasizes interdisciplinary approaches history — toward researching and writing a book on how Americans understand and shape Jewish-Muslim relations.
Sandwiched between the honors are Levin’s win of the Emory Williams Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching Award this spring and his selection for the American Jewish Archives fellowship in 2026-27.
“This recognition is so well-deserved,” says Joe Crespino, senior associate dean of faculty at Emory College and divisional dean of humanities and social sciences.
“Geoff writes and teaches in deeply scholarly ways about some of the most contentious topics in the world today, and he does it with great academic integrity, sensitivity and insight,” adds Crespino, the Jimmy Carter Professor of History. “We are lucky to have him here at Emory.”
Levin’s first book, “Our Palestine Question”, grew out of his doctoral dissertation on American Jewish leaders’ concerns for Palestinians displaced in the years surrounding Israel’s creation. It published in 2023, just a month after the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack against Israel that resulted in the latest ongoing war in Gaza.
In class and meetings held since, he encountered students who were personally affected by the violence and many who were uncertain how to talk about it.
Levin worked with several of his students to hold a book event. Undergraduate students moderated the discussion that included questions on Palestinian and Israeli rights, Jewish politics and security, antisemitism, Islamophobia, the historical reverberations on those issues, and more.
He has since collaborated with other groups of students and faculty, emphasizing the stories of people with complex ties to all sides of the conflict, including the role played by American foreign policy.
The American Jewish Historical Society called Levin’s writing a “compelling account” of the history when awarding him the Saul Viener Book Prize for the best book in the field of American Jewish history published in 2023 or 2024.
“Hearing the stories of individuals who break our assumptions about the past humanizes those involved in the conflict today,” Levin says. “Right now, just teaching how to discern proper knowledge and provide a factual basis feels urgent. We need to be at the forefront of these conversations.”
Levin has begun researching the new book as a natural outgrowth of those conversations. He says that examining the history of Jewish life in Muslim lands, and how Americans — and American Jews in particular — make sense of that history, will add depth to an already-layered narrative shaping American and global politics.
These findings will become part of Levin’s classes when he returns to campus after his time in England. Levin also will continue teaching a world politics course on Israel and Palestine.
More on-campus conversations will follow, something he cherishes.
“A lot of what I am doing aims to counter the dehumanization of Jews, Arabs and Muslims that is all too prevalent today,” Levin says. “I see my service and teaching as tools to help make everyone here feel more secure and respected.”
Levin emphasizes that anyone, not just Middle East scholars, can help make campus a more welcoming place to all during times of crisis.
“You don’t need to make a political statement to try to be there as a person,” Levin says. “Even though opinions about the Middle East may divide us, we must focus on our shared humanity.”