Dvora Hacohen 1936 – 2026

Biography

Dvora Hacohen was an Israeli historian whose research reshaped understanding of how mass immigration built Israeli society. Born in Tiberias on February 1, 1936, she became professor of modern history at Bar-Ilan University, in the Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology. Her books included Immigrants in Turmoil (1994), The One Million Plan (1994), on David Ben-Gurion’s wartime blueprint for mass immigration, and The Grain and the Millstone (1998), on the settlement of immigrants in the Negev. Her biography of Henrietta Szold, To Repair a Broken World, was published in Hebrew in 2019 and by Harvard University Press in 2021, winning Jewish Book Council awards for book of the year and biography. She received the Ben-Gurion Prize for her scholarship. She died on November 13, 2026, aged 90, and was buried the same day at Har HaMenuchot in Jerusalem.