Bernard Cooperman (PhD, Harvard University) focuses on the development of communal institutions and political thought among Jews in early modern Italy. Recent publications include “Political Discourse in a Kabbalistic Register: Isaac De Lattes’ Plea for Stronger Communal Government,” in Be’erot Yitzhak, Isadore Twersky Memorial Volume (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), and "Theorizing Jewish Self-Government in Early Modern Italy" in Una Manna Buona per Mantova. Man Tov le-Man Tovah. Studi in onore di Vittore Colorni per il suo 92° compleanno (Florence: Olschki, 2004). He served as Director of the Meyerhoff Center for Jewish Studies from 1991 to 1997.