I study Western and Central Eurasia – Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe with frequent incursions in the Middle East, Central Asia, and Southern Europe – from 1750 to the present. My research revolves around two clusters: education, economic life, and society; family life, intergenerational relations, and youth. My work brings together approaches from comparative historical sociology, comparative and international education, and comparative literature to craft richer narratives of social change in the modern world.

Since October 2025, I have been a lecturer in European and Global History at Bar-Ilan University. I received my Ph.D. with Distinction from Yale University in 2024. Before joining Bar-Ilan, I spent a year as a postdoctoral fellow at the Polonsky Academy in Jerusalem. My work benefitted from residential fellowships at the Open Society Archives in Budapest, the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, the Institute of Contemporary History in Ljubljana, the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, the Institute of Social Sciences at the University of Lisbon, and the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz in Berlin. 

Through my teaching, I bring my interest in how people build their lives and make sense of the world to students of various backgrounds. To even wider audiences, I strive to write whenever my expertise can shed light on contemporary problems. I have been doing so in my native Hebrew, English, and an increasing number of European, Middle Eastern, and Eurasian languages.

Орэль Бейлинсон, Орел Бејлинсон, Ορέλ Μπέιλινσον, أورئيل بيلينسون, ორელ ბეილინსონი