Phyllis Chesler

Phyllis Chesler, Ph.D, is an Emerita Professor of Psychology and Women’s Studies at City University of New York. She is a best-selling author, a legendary feminist leader, a retired psychotherapist and an expert courtroom witness. She has lectured and organized political, legal, religious, and human rights campaigns in the United States, Canada, Europe, Israel, and the Far East. Her work has been translated into many European languages and into Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Hebrew. Dr. Chesler is a co-founder of the Association for Women in Psychology (1969), The National Women's Health Network (1974), and The International Committee for the (Original) Women of the Wall (1989). She is a Shillman-Ginsburg Fellow at The Middle East Forum, Advisor-in-Chief at Choices Global Institute of Healing & Education, a fellow at the Institute for the Study of Global Anti-Semitism and Policy (ISGAP), a founding member of SPME, and currently a member of SPME’s Council of Scholars. She is the author of sixteen books, including the landmark feminist classic Women and Madness, as well as many other notable books including With Child: A Diary of Motherhood; Mothers on Trial: The Battle for Children and Custody; Woman's Inhumanity to Woman; and Women of the Wall: Claiming Sacred Ground at Judaism's Holy Site. After publishing The New Anti-Semitism (2003), she published The Death of Feminism: What's Next in the Struggle For Women's Freedom (2005) and An American Bride in Kabul(2013), which won a National Jewish Book Award. In 2016, she published Living History: On the Front Lines for Israel and the Jews 2003-2015. In 2015, Gefen Publishing brought out the new edition of Chesler's 2003 work The New Anti-Semitism, which she expanded, strengthened, lightly updated, and for which she wrote a new Introduction. Gefen is an English-language publisher based in Jerusalem and New Jersey. Since 9/11, Dr. Chesler has focused on anti-Semitism and the demonization of Israel; the psychology of terrorism; the nature of propaganda and the importance of the cognitive war against fact and reason; honor-based violence and the rights of women, dissidents, and gays in the Islamic world. Dr. Chesler has published four studies, and is working on a fifth, about honor-related violence, including honor killings, and penned a position paper on why the West should ban the burqa; these studies have all appeared in Middle East Quarterly. She has testified for Muslim and ex-Muslim women who are seeking asylum or citizenship based on their credible belief that their families will honor kill them. She has archived most of her articles at her website: www.phyllis-chesler.com Dr. Chesler is working on a new book and on a two volume edition of her work on Tribal Honor-Based Violence and Honor Killing for an academic publisher. She has been profiled in many encyclopedias, including Feminists Who Have Changed America, Jewish Women in America, and in the latest Encyclopedia Judaica. She has published widely over the years in the mainstream media (NY Times, LA Times, Washington Post, Times of London, London Guardian, Globe and Mail, Huffington Post, Jerusalem Post, etc.), as well as at FOX, Middle East Quarterly, New York Post, FrontpageMag.com, Israel National News, PJ Media, Breitbart.com, Times of Israel, etc. She lives in Manhattan and is a proud and grateful mother and grandmother.