The Mandel Foundation mourns the tragic loss of our faculty member Professor Motti Golani, who was critically injured when a tree collapsed on him during a family outing in the Nahal HaShofet nature reserve in northern Israel. A key figure at the Mandel Foundation–Israel, Professor Golani was at the height of his research career and at the forefront of the development of the field of historical thinking and memory studies – in general and as a tool for studying Israeli society.

Professor Golani was a professor of Jewish history and the chair of the Jewish history department at Tel Aviv University, where he also headed the Chaim Weizmann Institute for the Study of Zionism and Israel. His main research interests concern questions of morality, memory, politics, and war in the pre-state Zionist era and in the history of the State of Israel. A scholar of the British Mandate period from the perspective of Zionist-British relations, he chaired the Israeli Mandate Research Forum.

Professor Golani’s books include: Zion in Zionism: Zionist Policy and the Question of Jerusalem, 1937–1949 (1992); Israel in Search of War: The Sinai Campaign, 1955–1956 (1998); Wars Don’t Just Happen: On Memory, Force, and Choice (2002); The End of the British Mandate for Palestine, 1948 (2009); The Last Commissioner: General Sir Alan Gordon Cunningham, 1945–1948 (2011); Two Sides of the Coin: Independence and Nakba 1948, Two Narratives of the 1948 War and its Outcome (2011, with Adel Manna); and Palestine Between Politics and Terror 1945–1947 (2013).

Professor Golani’s book Chaim Weizmann: A Biography, which he co-authored with Mandel Foundation President and CEO Professor Jehuda Reinharz, was awarded the President and Prime Minister’s Prize for 2024 at a ceremony that took place at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem in the presence of President Isaac Herzog.

Motti Golani will be sorely missed by the Mandel community. We extend our heartfelt condolences to his family, friends, colleagues, and students.