Yehoshua Ecker is a historian of the Middle East, specializing in the early modern Ottoman Empire and the Jewish experience in the Muslim world, with interest in local histories, diasporas, and imperial and trans-imperial networks. He received his Ph.D. from Tel Aviv University. His current book project examines the formation of an Ottoman Jewish elite and its political, social and economic impact from the 17th to the 19th centuries. He has published biographical studies and translated sources on local Jewish communities in the early modern and modern periods. His teaching includes courses on Jews in the Muslim world, the memory and documentation of Jewish communities in Arab and Muslim countries, and Ottoman Palestine.