About

Curriculum Vitae

PERSONAL INFORMATION

Family name, First name: Orbach, Dan

Researcher unique identifier – ORCID: 0000-0002-2826-4935

Date of birth: 27.7.1981

Nationality: Israeli

URL for web site:  https://en.asia.huji.ac.il/people/dan-orbach

EDUCATION

2015                  PhD, direct track, History Department, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA. Thesis: Culture of Disobedience: Rebellion and Defiance in the Japanese Army, 1860-1931. Supervisor: Prof. Andrew Gordon

2007-2009         Monbusho Research Student, The University of Tokyo, Japan

2006                  BA summa cum laude, History and East Asian Studies Departments, Tel Aviv University, Israel    

 CURRENT POSITIONS

2021-                Associate Professor, Departments of History and Asian Studies, Faculty of Humanities, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

2022-              Visiting Professor, Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cambridge, UK

2023-                Visiting fellow, Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge, UK

PREVIOUS POSITIONS

2016-2021       Senior Lecturer, Departments of History and Asian Studies, Faculty of Humanities, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

2015-2016      Postdoctoral Fellow, The Program for U.S.-Japan Relations, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

FELLOWSHIPS AND AWARDS

2019                Visiting Associate Professor, Summer Research Fellowship, Kyoto University, Japan

2018, 2020-2021 Rector’s Distinction of Excellence in Teaching, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

2017-2020       Research Fellow, The Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

2017                Visiting Fellow, Waseda University, Japan (Summer Term)

2017                Best Dissertation Prize, Israel Association for Japanese Studies

2016-2019       Azrieli Faculty Fellowship (Enabling the absorption and integration of top researchers into tenure-track faculty positions), Azrieli Fellows Program, Azrieli Foundation

2016                Fellow, Summer Workshop on the Analysis of Military Operations and Strategy (SWAMOS), Cornell University, NY, USA

2014                Harvard Horizons Scholar Program for outstanding PhD students, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

2011, 2014        The Derek C. Bok Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Teaching of Undergraduates, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

2012-2013         Doctoral Research Fellowship, The Japan Foundation and the University of Tokyo

2012-                 External Fellow, International History Institute, Boston University, MA, USA

2011-2012      Graduate Student Associate, Davis Center for Russian and European Studies, Harvard

2007-2009      Monbusho Research Scholarship, The University of Tokyo, Japan

2005                Rector’s Award for Academic Excellence, Tel Aviv University, Israel

2004                The Robert Bosch Foundation Award for Jewish Studies

TEACHING ACTIVITIES (at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem unless specified otherwise)

2021                Fishing in troubled water: intelligence, espionage and covert action in the Japanese empire, 1868-1945 (undergraduate seminar)

2020-               Japan’s samurai revolution: The Meiji restoration as global history (graduate seminar)

2020-               Soldiers of the emperor: army, war and passion in Japan and East Asia (undergraduate course)

2019                Intelligence, espionage and covert action: theory and history (undergraduate seminar)

2017-              War of the worlds: resistance and collaboration in WWII (undergraduate seminar)

2017                Introduction to pre-modern Japanese history (undergraduate course)

2016-              War in the world: military history from the French revolution to ISIS (undergraduate course)

2016-              Introduction to modern Japanese history (undergraduate course)

2016, 2018        Disobedience, rebellion and defiance in the Japanese army, 1860-1936 (graduate Seminar)

2016                  Japan’s samurai revolution: The Meiji restoration (1868) in Japanese history (undergraduate                          seminar)

2011, 2014      Teaching fellow, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

ORGANISATION OF SCIENTIFIC MEETINGS

2017                Organizer, International Conference, Officers, Adventurers and Statesmen: Reconsidering Militarism in Twentieth Century Japan, Department of Asian Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

INSTITUTIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES (mostly at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

2021-2022      Head of the Japanese Studies Section and Graduate Student Advisor, Department of Asian Studies

2019-2022      Media Coordinator, responsible for social media promotion and for the departmental website, Department of Asian Studies

2016-2022      Coordinator of the Departmental Seminar, Department of Asian Studies

2016-2022      Board member, Israeli Association for Japanese Studies

2016-                Faculty member, Departments of History and Asian Studies, Faculty of Humanities

REVIEWING ACTIVITIES

2019-2022        Journal Reviewer: International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, The                             Journal of Chinese Military History, The Journal of Military History

2022                External evaluator in a tenure committee, Bar-Ilan University, Israel

2021               Member in the following Hebrew University’s prize committees: President’s Award for Outstanding Young Researcher, Rothschild Prize, Azrieli Foundation, Polonsky Prize for Creativity and Originality in the Humanistic Disciplines

2019-2022      External referee in dissertation committees: Haifa University, Bar-Ilan University, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

2017, 2020      Evaluator of proposals, Israel Science Foundation (ISF)

MEMBERSHIPS OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES

2019-              International Intelligence History Association

2019-              Chinese Military History Society

2019-              The European Association for Japanese Studies (EAJS)

2019-              Israeli Association for Japanese Studies 

2014-              Society for Military History

2014-                American Historical Association

2012-              The Association for Asian Studies (AAS)

MAJOR COLLABORATIONS

-Ziv Bohrer, Faculty of Law, Bar-Ilan University, Israel. Topic: “Manifestly Illegal Orders in the Japanese Army”

-Yagil Henkin, Research Fellow, Haifa University, Israel. Topic: “From Deception to Mass Murder: Operation Mole and the Kafr Qasim Massacre Reconsidered”

-Polina Serebriakova, Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Cambridge University, UK. Topic:

“Irregular Warfare in Early Modern Japan: Towards a Historical Understanding of the Ninja”

-Shlomo Sphiro, Department of Political Studies, Bar-Ilan University, Israel and Yaacov Falkov, International Institute for Counter-Terrorism, Reichman University, Israel. Topic: “Moles and Double Agents”. Co-edited special issue in the International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence.

Publications

Books:

(1) Danny Orbach, Fugitives: A History of Nazi Mercenaries during the Cold War (New York: Pegasus and London: Hurst, 2022) — translations to Hungarian, Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese and French (forthcoming)

(2) Danny Orbach, Curse on this Country: The Rebellious Army of Imperial Japan (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2017) — Hebrew and Japanese translations of the above.

(3) Danny Orbach, The Plots against Hitler (New York: Houghton Mifflin, Eamon Dolan Books) — British edition (London: Head of Zeus, 2018), as well as Italian, Spanish, Croatian, Romanian, Hebrew, Czech and Thai translations of the above.

(4) Danny Orbach, Valkyrie – Ha-Hitnagdut ha-Germanit le-Hitler (Valkyrie: German Resistance to Hitler), in Hebrew, (Tel Aviv: Yedioth Ahronot Press, 2009)

Special Issues: (co-edited)

Danny Orbach, ed., Shlomo Shpiro, ed. and Yaacov Falkov, ed. Moles and Doubles Agents, a special issue of The International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, vol.36 (2023).

Articles: (Selected)

(1) Danny Orbach (PI) and Ziv Bohrer (PI), “Let the Commander Respond: The Paradox of Obedience in the Imperial Japanese Army”, Law and History Review (September, 2023), pp.1-23.

(2) Yagil Henkin (PI) and Danny Orbach (PI), “From Deception to Mass Murder: Operation Mole and the Kafr Qasim Massacre Reconsidered”, Journal of Military History, vol.87, no.2 (March 2023 – forthcoming)

(3) Danny Orbach, “Former Nazis in German Intelligence Politics: The Exposure of Moles and Reckless Decision Making, 1959-1962”, in Moles and Double Agents, special issue of The International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, vol.36 (2023).

(4) Danny Orbach, “Foreign Military Adventurers in the Taiping Rebellion, 1860-1864”, Journal of Chinese Military History vol.10 (2021), pp.1-32.

(5) Polina Serebriakova (PI) and Danny Orbach (PI), “Irregular Warriors: Towards a Historical Understanding of the Ninja”, Journal of Military History, vol.84, no.4 (October, 2020), pp.997-1020.

(6) Danny Orbach, “Pure Spirits: Imperial Japanese Justice and Right-Wing Terrorists, 1878-1936”, Asian Studies 6 (2), (June 2018), pp.129-156.

(7) Danny Orbach, “The Military-Adventurous Complex: Officers, Adventurers and Japanese Expansion in East Asia, 1884-1937”, Modern Asian Studies (August 2018), pp.339-376.

(8) Danny Orbach, “The Other Prussia – General von Tresckow, Resistance to Hitler and the Nature of Charisma”, Tel Aviver Jahrbūcher fūr deutsche Geschichte (October 2016)

(9) Danny Orbach, “‘By not stopping’: The First Taiwan Expedition (1874) and the Roots of Japanese Military Disobedience”, The Journal of Japanese Studies 42: 1 (Winter 2016), pp.29-55.

(10) Danny Orbach (PI) and Mark Solonin (PI), “Calculated Indifference: The Soviet Union and the Plan to Bomb Auschwitz”, Holocaust and Genocide Studies 27 (2013), pp.90-113.

(11) Danny Orbach, “Black Flag at a Crossroads: the Political Trial of Kafr-Qasim (1956-8): Dynamics and Consequences”, International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 45 (2013), pp.491-511.

(12) Danny Orbach, “Tyrannicide in Radical Islam: Sayyid Qutb and Abd A-Salam Faraj”, Middle Eastern Studies (November 2012), pp. 961-972.

(13) Danny Orbach, “Criticism Reconsidered: The German Resistance to Hitler in Critical German Scholarship”, Journal of Military History 75:2 (April, 2011), pp.1-26.

Books Chapters: (selected)

(1) Danny Orbach, “Nogi Maresuke” in John Jennings, ed., The Worst Military Leaders in History (London: Reaktion Books, 2022)

(2) Danny Orbach, “Japan: The Culture of Insubordination in the Army”, in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, published online, November 2020), 10,395 words, 22 pages.

(3) Danny Orbach, “Valkyrie: The anti-Nazi Underground in the Wehrmacht, 1938-1944”, in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, published online: October 2020), 14,354 words, 30 pages.

Invited Talks, Lectures, Presentations (selected, since 2017)

• “Out of the Ruins: Neo-Nazi Identity in the Secret Cold War”, invited presentation, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA (20 March 2023, forthcoming)
• “Let the Commander Respond: The Paradox of Obedience in the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces”, Annual Conference, Association of Asian Studies (AAS), Boston, and the Conference of Chinese Military History, San Diego, USA (March 19, 23, 2023 forthcoming)
• “Room for Interpretation: Murderous and Benign: The Case of Kafr Qasim”, invited presentation, Middle Eastern Studies Department, University of Texas at Austin, USA (March 22, 2023, forthcoming)
• “West German Intelligence, KGB Mole Heinz Felfe, and the Peculiar Character of Mole Exposure Scandals”, Cambridge University Intelligence Research Seminar, UK (November 18, 2022)
• “The Military Adventurous Complex: Intelligence Maladies and the Making of Japanese Imperialism”, Annual Conference of the International Intelligence History Association, Tutzing, Germany (July 1, 2022)
• “Fugitives: The Extraordinary Tale of Nazi Agents in the Cold War”, invited book presentation, Conference on Cold War Disconnections and the Transformation of Internationalisms, Munich, Germany (June 10, 2022)
• “The Policy-Capability Gap: Western Adventurers in the Taiping Rebellion, 1860-1864”, Conference of Chinese Military History, Arlington, Virginia, USA (April 30, 2020 by zoom).
• “Nazi Fugitives in the Cold War: The Search for a New Cultural Identity”, invited presentation, Cultural Cold War Conference, Munich, Germany (October 22, 2019)
• “The Plots against Hitler”, keynote address, The 10^th International Conference on WWII, The National WWII Museum, New Orleans, USA (16-18 November, 2017)