Professor Steven E. Zipperstein has been appointed as Director of the UCLA Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies as of July 1, 2025. Prof. Zipperstein is a scholar of the legal history of Israel–Palestine.

Professor Zipperstein teaches at UCLA in the Department of Public Policy, the Global Studies Interdepartmental Program within the UCLA International Institute, and the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science.

He is a Visiting Professor at Tel Aviv University Law School and a Visiting Lecturer at the Hertie School in Berlin. He serves as a Distinguished Senior Scholar at the UCLA Center for Middle East Development and as a Senior Fellow at The Hague Initiative for International Cooperation in the Netherlands.

Zipperstein is the author of three peer-reviewed books: The Legal Case for Palestine: A Critical Assessment (Routledge, 2024), Zionism, Palestinian Nationalism and the Law: 1939-1948 (Routledge, 2022), and Law and the Arab-Israeli Conflict: The Trials of Palestine (Routledge, 2020). He has also published many peer-reviewed articles on a variety of subjects. He is a regular contributor to the Times of Israel and other publications.  

Before joining UCLA, Zipperstein practiced law for 40 years in California, Washington D.C., and New York/New Jersey. He served as a US federal prosecutor and as the Chief Legal Officer of Verizon Wireless and BlackBerry Ltd.

"I am thrilled to join the UCLA Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for Israel Studies as its new director. I look forward to serving the Center’s vibrant and diverse community of students, scholars, and community members—on campus and throughout the US and the world—and bringing you the highest quality programs and academic scholarship focusing on Israel in all its dimensions.

I also want to thank my recent predecessors, interim director Professor Mark Kligman and former director Professor Dov Waxman, for all they have done to strengthen the Center and ensure its place as a top academic platform for Israel Studies in the United States and internationally." –Professor Steven E. Zipperstein