Yakov M. Rabkin has been Professor of History at the Université de Montréal since 1973. He has also held visiting positions at universities in Australia, France, Israel, Japan, Russia, South Africa, Ukraine and the United States. His areas of expertise are contemporary Jewish history, international relations, and science and technology policies. He has authored hundreds of articles and several books, including Science between the Superpowers , A Threat from Within: A Century of Jewish Opposition to Zionism (available in fifteen languages), What is Modern Israel? (available in six languages), Demodernization: A Future in the Past , and Judaïsme, islam et modernité . His most recent book on Israel in Palestine has been being published in French, Japanese and Spanish and is due to appear in English in the Fall of 2025. Rabkin is frequently invited to comment on current events in electronic and printed media. He has done consulting work for OECD, NATO, UNESCO and the World Bank, among others.

He is a founding member of Independent Jewish Voicies (Canada). Ronnie Kasarils, a South African Jew, devoted his life to fighting apartheid in South Africa where he was a guerilla fighter, comrade of Nelson Mandela and later Minister for Intelligence Services in the ANC Government of Thabo Mbeki.