Yair Mintzker is an assistant professor of history, specializing in German-speaking Central Europe from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries.  Born and raised in Jerusalem, Professor Mintzker received his M.A. in history cum laude magna from Tel-Aviv University (2003) and his Ph.D. from Stanford University (2009).  His broad interests include urban history as well as intellectual, cultural, and political history of Early Modern and Modern Europe.

Prof. Mintzker’s dissertation, The Defortification of the German City, 1689-1866 (winner of the Fritz Stern Prize of the German Historical Institute, 2009), tells the story of the metamorphosis of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century German cities from walled to defortified places. By using a wealth of original sources, the dissertation discusses one of the most significant moments in the emergence of the modern city: the dramatic—and often traumatic—demolition of the city’s centuries-old physical boundaries and the creation of the open city.  The research and writing of the dissertation were supported by grants from the School of Sciences and Humanities at Stanford, the DAAD, the Ms. Giles Whiting Foundation, and the Geballe Dissertation Prize at the Stanford Humanities Center.

Co-sponsored by the Department of History and the Taube Center for Jewish Studies.