Y&S Nazarian Center Research Fellow and former Center Postdoctoral Fellow, Nadav Molchadsky specializes in modern Jewish history, history of Zionism and the State of Israel. His research sheds new light on the complex web of relations among history, historiography, politics and law. Molchadsky has a special interest in processes of collective memory formation and commissions of inquiry, particularly state and military.

The case studies he has written and lectured about cover a wide spectrum of topics that shocked the Yishuv (the pre-state Jewish community of Palestine) and Israel to their foundations. These topics include the affair of the Arlosoroff murder, the 1948 War, the Yom Kippur War, the riots of October 2000, and the Yemenite Children Affair—all of which led to the establishment of commissions of inquiry. By applying a comparative analysis, Molchadsky's studies open a vista into the ways in which a national society such as Israel, processes and negotiates its past and its memory of it.

Molchadsky earned his B.A. (Magna Cum Laude) in Jewish history and Political Science from Tel-Aviv University. He did his Master's and Ph.D. in history at UCLA. During the 2015-2106 academic year he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the UCLA Nazarian Center, where he teaches courses on Israeli history and culture.