Dr Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein is a Senior Lecturer in the Asian Studies Department. His main research focus is North Korean society and history, with a special interest in surveillance, and social and political control, as well as state-society relations and North Korea’s markets. He received his PhD in History from University of Pennsylvania in 2021 with a dissertation about the historical evolution of surveillance in North Korea from the late-1950s till the present. He is also a Non-Resident Fellow at the Swedish Institute for International Affairs and at the Stimson Center’s program 38 North.

He is frequently cited on North Korea and Korean affairs by international media outlets such as the BBC, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, The Economist, and many others. At Hebrew University, he teaches courses on Korean history, North Korean society and politics, and security issues in East Asia. 

 

Office phone: 02-5883910, cell: 050-5954885. Office hours: by appointment via email, benjamin.katzeffsilberstein@mail.huji.ac.il. 

 

Publications: "What's Up with North Korea's Skyrocketing Exchange Rates?", https://www.38north.org/2024/10/whats-up-with-north-koreas-skyrocketing-exchange-rates/

 

Co-editor: "Everyday Politics in North Korea," special issue of Asian Studies Review, vol. 28, 2024, issue 2, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10357823.2024.2312140. 

 

"The Red, Big Family: Utopian Surveillance in North Korean Cities," chapter in Pursuing Sustainable Urban Development in North Korea, ed. Pavel Em (London, UK: Routledge, 2024). 

 

"Strategies of Political Control under Kim Jong Un: Understanding the Changing Mix of Containment, Repression, Co-optation, and Coercive Distribution," Asian Survey, vol. 63, no. 4 (2023): pp. 557–583. With Peter Ward. 

 

"Social (Im)mobility and Bureaucratic Failings: Family Background and the Sŏngbun System in North Korea," Journal of Korean Studies, vol. 28, no. 1 (2023): 111–137.