Later, he studied history at the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, but was expelled before graduating because he had registered for aliyah to Israel.
He continued his studies after moving to the relatively new state of Israel, in 1959, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he graduated BA in History and Romance languages in 1967.
In 1977, he was ordained at the Hebrew University, receiving a doctorate in Jewish history in modern times.
He worked extensively with archival materials from Israel, Romania, Russia, Moldova, the United States, and Germany.
[2] Ancel was principal investigator at Yad Vashem and the author of several history books, some of which have been translated into Romanian.