Rachel Havrelock

Rachel Havrelock is Associate Professor of English and Jewish Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Rachel is the author of River Jordan: The Mythology of a Dividing Line (University of Chicago Press, 2011), which examines the long history of the Jordan as a border, as well as the moments when it was not a border. She has written three plays—From Tel Aviv to Ramallah, Soundtrack City, and MeTube—which have been performed in Chicago and on national and international stages by her husband, Yuri Lane. Rachel is at work on a new book, Pipeline: How Oil Created the Modern Middle East and How Water Can Transform It, and a related play about the meeting of Chaim Weitzmann and the future king Faisal at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. She is involved with efforts on the part of Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME)/Ecopeace to develop a transborder ecological peace park at the Jordan River. Rachel blogs for The Huffington Post and co-hosted Who Was Jesus, the Discovery Channel’s series on the historical Jesus.