Donna Robinson Divine

Donna Robinson Divine (born 1941) is Morningstar Family Professor in Jewish Studies and Professor of Government at Smith College. She holds a B.A. from Brandeis University, 1963, and a Ph.D. from Columbia University, 1971, in Political Science. Divine is interested in Comparative Politics, Middle East Politics, and Political Theory.

Divine is fluent in three of the major languages of the Middle East, Arabic, Hebrew, and Turkish, this enables her to conduct research across the region, studying both historical developments and contemporary trends.

She has written on Zionist immigration to Palestine during the British Mandate, analyzing how exile functioned as a contrast to the society created in Palestine during the period of British rule.

According to Efraim Karsh Divine sees many common links between Zionist state building and the situation facing the Palestinians, comparing the roles of the Histadrut in Israel with that of Hamas and other voluntary bodies in the Palestinian "entity." She asserts that the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza "have created a more vibrant civil society than at any other time in their history."

Divine believes that with their attention directed to explaining the loss of a Palestinian state in 1948, scholars have failed to appreciate Palestine’s nineteenth century history as a period of significant development.

Divine is a committed feminist, she has criticized those who perceive the social activities of women’s colleges but fail to perceive that “As important as social activities may be, we have no mission but that of promoting scholarship.”