Prof. Elisheva Baumgarten is a professor in the Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry and in the Department of History. She studies the social and religious history of the Jews of medieval northern Europe (1000-1350) and her research focuses on the social history of the Jewish communities living in the urban centers of medieval Europe and especially on daily contacts between Jews and Christians.
Prof. Yaron Ben-Naeh holds the Bernard Cherrick Chair in the History of the Jewish People and head of the modern period division in the department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry.
Professor Jonathan Dekel-Chen is the Rabbi Edward Sandrow Chair in Soviet & East European Jewry at the Hebrew University. He holds a dual appointment in the Department of Jewish History and in the Department of General History.
Miriam Frenkel is associate professor in the Department for Jewish History, where she also serves as B.A advisor, and in the School of History. She is head of the Multi Disciplinary Program and of the Dinur Center for the Study of Jewish History.
Associate Professor at the Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry and a fellow at the Research Institute of Contemporary Jewry at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem; was the institute’s head in the years 2020-2024.
Dr. David Guedj is a Senior lecturer at the Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry and the Head of Misgav Yerushalayim research Center for the heritage of Sephardi Jewry.
Dr. Noah Hacham is a researcher and teacher. Senior lecturer in the Dept. of Jewish History and Contemporary Judaism, and member of the research group "question of identity" Mandel-Scholion interdisciplinary center.
PhD from the Hebrew University, teaches modern social history and specializes in the Jewish community of Mandate era Palestine and the first years of Israeli statehood.
Prof. Oded Irshai's scholarly interests and teaching curriculum revolve around the history and culture of the Jews in Late Antiquity under the umbrella of a Christian-Roman Empire.
Avigail Manekin-Bamberger completed her PhD at Tel Aviv University and was later a postdoctoral fellow at the Martin Buber Society of Fellows at the Hebrew University. Her research focuses on the social and cultural history of Jews in antiquity, with a special emphasis on Jewish society in the Sasanian Empire and ancient magic.
Uzi Rebhun is a demographer. His research focuses on American Jewry and the population of Israel. Utilizing quantitative data through methods from the social sciences he explores topics such as internal and international migration, family and marriage, religious and ethnic identification, social and economic stratification, anti-Semitism, and Israel-Diaspora relations.
Major research interests are Jewish magical texts, the reception of the Hebrew Bible in Jewish traditions, the Haskalah movement, and 'Wissenschaft des Judentums'. With special interest in reconstructing Jewish reading cultures in Central and Eastern Europe from the early modern period onward.
Daniel Schwartz is a historian of the Second Temple Period. Born in the USA in 1952, he moved to Israel in 1971 and then began his studies of Jewish and general history at the Hebrew University, eventually completing three degrees; his 1979 doctoral dissertation was devoted to ancient attitudes toward the Temple of Jerusalem.
Prof. Dmitry Shumsky is Israel Goldstein Chair in the History of Zionism and the New Yishuv at the Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry, and Director of the Bernard Cherrick Center for the study of Zionism, the Yishuv, and the State of Israel at the Hebrew University.
Prof. Yfaat Weiss teaches at the Department for the History of the Jewish People and Contemporary Jewry since 2008. She is acting as the director of the Franz Rosenzweig Minerva Center since 2010, and as the Director of the Simon Dubnow Institute for Jewish history and Culture at Leipzig University since 2017.
Oded Zinger studies the history of Jews in the medieval Islamic world, mostly through the documents of the Cairo genizot. Having trained at both Princeton and Jerusalem, after the completion of his doctoral thesis, he was a Perliman post-doctoral fellow at the Center for Jewish Studies at Duke University, a member of a research group on the cultural capital of Jewish women at the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies and a fellow at the Martin Buber Society at the Hebrew University. His research combines philological study of Geniza documents together with social and cultural history. His current project revolves around issues of gender and law, for example, how gender shaped the ways ordinary Jews experienced and acted in the dynamic and complex judicial bazaar of medieval Egypt? He is also working on a project on Geniza private letters and how their writers made claims upon their recipients based on gender and kinship. From this project he hopes to develop in the future a larger project on the practices and conceptions of masculinities of Jews in the medieval Islamic world. He is also interested in the popular literature composed and consumed by Jews in the medieval world and how it can be used for social history.
Prof. Elisheva Baumgarten is a professor in the Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry and in the Department of History. She studies the social and religious history of the Jews of medieval northern Europe (1000-1350) and her research focuses on the social history of the Jewish communities living in the urban centers of medieval Europe and especially on daily contacts between Jews and Christians. Her work seeks to include those who did not write the sources that have reached us, with a special interest in women and gender hierarchies.
She is the author of three monographs and over a dozen edited books, among them:
Mothers and Children: Jewish Family Life in Medieval Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004) Winner of 2005 Koret Award for best book in Jewish History, of the 2008 AJS Jordan Schnitzer award for the best book in Gender Studies and a finalist of the 2004 National Jewish Book Award in Women’s Studies
Practicing Piety in Medieval Ashkenaz: Men, Women and Everyday Religious Observance (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014) finalist of the 2014 National Jewish Book Award in Women’s Studies
Biblical Women and Jewish Daily Life in Medieval Ashkenaz (in print, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2022) Winner of 2022 National Jewish Book Award in Women’s Studies
Tzafrir Barzilay, Eyal Levinson and Elisheva Baumgarten (eds.), Jewish Daily Life in Medieval Europe. A Source Book (Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University Press, 2022).
Katrin Kogman-Appel, Elisheva Baumgarten, Elisabeth Hollender and Ephraim Shoham-Steiner (eds.), Perception and Awareness: Artefacts and Imageries in Medieval European Jewish Cultures (Turnhout: Brepols, 2023).
Elisheva completed her studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (B.A., magna cum laude, 1993; M.A., summa cum laude, 1995; Ph.D, summa cum laude, 2001) and spent two years at the University of Pennsylvania (1999-2001) and then returned to Israel. She came to the Hebrew University in 2013 after teaching in the Department of Jewish History and the Gender Studies Program at Bar Ilan University for 12 years (2001-2013).
Ram Ben-Shalom is professor of the History of the Jewish People and director of the Center Hispania Judaica in the Hebrew University. He is the co-editor of Hispania Judaica Bulletin. His research focuses on the medieval Jews of the Spanish kingdoms and Provence (Southern France; the Midi).
Prof. Yaron Ben-Naeh holds the Bernard Cherrick Chair in the History of the Jewish People and head of the modern period division in the department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry. Chair of Misgav Yerushalayim Research Center for the heritage of Sephardi Jewry since 2008. His work focuses on the social and cultural history of Jews in Islamic lands, mainly those of the Ottoman Empire, as well as the history of Palestine during the Ottoman period. He conducted a research on the archive of the Sassoon Family (Baghdad-India and the Far East). Ben-Naeh published over a hundred articles, a few books and edited some others. Among them: Jews in the Realm of the Sultans (Heb. Eng. Turkish); the volume on Turkey in the Ben-Zvi Institute, a historic chronicle on Sultan Osman's death, and an autobiography of a Jerusalemite rabbi from early 20th century Jerusalem. His book on Wills of Ottoman Jews will appear in the Shazar Center (2017), and so is his book on Hasköy, Istanbul (with Richard Wittmann, Orient Institut, Istanbul) which is due in Brill. A book on Ottoman Jerusalem is currently in preparation.
Appointment in my office (room 6140): Wed. 12:15-13:00, and upon request (02-5355059).
Dr. Edward Breuer is a Senior Research Associate in the Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry.His research focuses on eighteenth and nineteenth century Jewish intellectual History in Central and Western Europe. This includes work on the German-Jewish Enlightenment, and most especially on the writings of Moses Mendelssohn; on the rise of Wissenschaft des Judentums and the Reform movement; and on the study of the Bible in the modern era. He completed an annotated translation of Mendelssohn's Hebrew writings (edited with David Sorkin) that was published as part of the Yale Judaica Series in 2018. He is currently working with Marc Brettler (Bible, Duke University) on a study of the Jewish reception of biblical criticism from the 18th century to the present.
Director of the Vidal Sassoon Center for the Study of Antisemitism
I am a social and cultural historian of 19th and 20th centuries. My approach is transdisciplinary drawing on such subdisciplines as political history, the history of mentalities, oral history, gender history, history of ideas, and micro-history. My fields of expertise are: history of modern Western Europe; the history of Italy and of its Jewry; memory studies and Shoah studies; the history of antisemitism and racism; the history of fascist and neo-fascist thought; the methodology and philosophy of history.
Within the field of socio-cultural history, I consider myself a scholar positioned at the crossroads of studies on ideology, phenomenology and hermeneutics, their convergence, and their dialectical relation to and influence on issues such as: complex system of secular and religious beliefs (popular and elites), power relations, public narratives and collective practices, social and political violence and justice, and question of time and space. My trajectories lead me to engage in investigations into history and myth, on the discourse of politics and religion, and on the reproduction of mythopoetic structures, at the core of which I place the question of the sacred as a cornerstone of understanding majority/minorities relations.
My methodology has developed along the lines established by the Italian school of historiography derived from Federico Chabod, Delio Cantimori and Carlo Ginzburg. It also draws insights from the work of the anthropologist, ethnographer and historian of religion Ernesto De Martino, and his work on the stratification of popular and official forms of religious practices. Other sources of inspiration along my path have been the Annales School, as well as Reinhart Koselleck’s Begriffsgeschichte and its relations to the epistemology of history. Another influence has been Emile Benveniste’s linguistics, particularly the distinction he draws between meaning and what he terms designation guided my understanding of philology and anthropology.
I am completing in those days a short manuscript (120 pp.+ bibliography) on Primo Levi entitled Primo Levi as Job in Search of his Roots. On Evil, Suffering and Survival after the Camps. It has been accepted for publications by the CPL Editions New York, and it will appear in spring-summer 2023.
I am working on another book composed of articles on the topic Julius Evola as a Totalitarian, Racist and Antisemitic. A Study on Etiology of Hate. Julius Evola (1898–1974) has been one of the most misunderstood and controversial authors of the twentieth century. Evola a political organicist and an antisemite, in encountering the work of René Guénon, embraced his concept of the Tradition and his critique of the modern world, believing that Tradition was an idea which should encompass the social as well as the spiritual world.
Two individual books which have grown out of the work of JuliusEvola:
The first project is titled: “The Evolians: Super-Fascists, Neo-Fascists, Ethno-Nationalists. A Comparative Study in the Very Political Impact of the Meta-Political Alt-Right.” I explore and retrace the influence exercised by Julius Evola’s ideology after WWII and its formative impact on the European and international radical right in its Conservative Revolutionary, neo-fascist, and New Right manifestations. The second project is titled “Amnesty and Amnesia. Palmiro Togliatti and the Communist Politics of Oblivion, 1946-1956”. Starting from the amnesty of Togliatti, Minister of Justice in the first government of the Republic after the fall of fascism, the research aims to analyze the seductive binomial Amnesty, and Amnesia as if they were two synonyms, inspired by the work of Nicole Loraux on the Greek polis.
I am part of two new international research group projects. One is “The Global Papacy of Pius XII: Catholicism in a Divided World, 1945-1958” is supported by a Max Weber Foundation Five Years Grant in conjunction with the Deutsches Historisches Institut in Rom & the Deutsches Historisches Institut in Warschau, the École Francaise de Rome and Oxford University.
The first: “The Global Papacy of Pius XII: Catholicism in a Divided World, 1945-1958” is supported by a Max Weber Foundation Five Years Grant in conjunction with the Deutsches Historisches Institut in Rom & the Deutsches Historisches Institut in Warschau, the École Francaise de Rome and Oxford University. The second: International Research Training Group "Belongings: Jewish Material Culture in Twentieth-Century Europe and Beyond" (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Leipzig University, Leibniz Institute for Jewish History and Culture - Simon Dubnow) Proposal-Stage / Antragsphase (DFG)
In addition, in 2017, I initiated three new publications of books and e-journal series, in which I serve as editor in chief: 1) The Vidal Sassoon Studies in Antisemitism, Racism and Prejudice, a peer-reviewed book series published by De Gruyter, which offers a high-level platform within academia for understanding the historical and contemporary contexts of antisemitism and racism. 2) Analysis of Current Trends in Antisemitism – Acta. A peer-reviewed, open access e-Journal for De Gruyter Publisher that allows for a prompt publication of contributions that analyze current phenomena of antisemitic and racist prejudices, occurrences, and mechanisms of broader discriminations against targeted social groups. (See the SICSA Website Publications Series). 3) The Gold Rimmed Glasses by Magnes University Press (since 2019). The series is named after the title of Giorgio Bassani’s 1958 novel Gli occhiali d’oro set in the North Italian city of Ferrara. It aims to introduce the Israeli public to carefully curated unpublished Hebrew translations of noteworthy Italian books from the 20th and 21st Century and to offer new, thought-provoking and original insights, shedding lights on literary, historical and cultural issues.
Professor Jonathan Dekel-Chen is the Rabbi Edward Sandrow Chair in Soviet & East European Jewry at the Hebrew University. He holds a dual appointment in the Department of Jewish History and in the Department of General History. He served as the Academic Chairman of the Leonid Nevzlin Research Center for Russian and East European Jewry from 2009-2015 and Chairman of the Russian Studies Department and Jewish History Department. Prof. Dekel-Chen has held visiting professorships and research fellowships at the University of Pennsylvania (2008-2009), Columbia University (2015-2016) and Rutgers University (2021-2022). His research and publications deal with the modern Jewish world, Applied Humanities, transnational philanthropy and advocacy, non-state diplomacy, agrarian history and migration.
In 2014 he co-founded the Bikurim Youth Village for the Arts in Eshkol, which provides world-class artistic training for gifted, under-served high school students from throughout Israel.
Selected Publications:
Farming the Red Land: Jewish Agricultural Colonization and Local Soviet Power, 1923-1941. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005.
Editor (with David Gaunt, Natan Meir, Israel Bartal), Anti-Jewish Violence: Rethinking the Pogrom in East European History. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010.
Editor (with Eugene Avrutin and Robert Weinberg), Ritual Murder in Russia, Eastern Europe and Beyond: New Histories of an Old Accusation. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2017.
“Putting Agricultural History to Work: Global Action Today from a Communal Past.” Featured article in: Agricultural History 94, no. 4 (2020): 512-544.
“A Response to R. Douglas Hurt, Ben Nobbs-Thiessen and Nahum Karlinsky.” Agricultural History 94, no. 4 (Fall 2020): 562-567.
“Israeli Reactions in a Soviet Moment: Reflections on the 1970 Leningrad Affair.” Kennan Cable #58. September 2020.
“A Light unto the Nations? A Stalled Vision for the Future of the Humanities.” AJS Perspectives. Fall 2020, pp. 56-58.
“Transnational Intervention and its Limits: The Case of Interwar Poland.” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 17, no. 3 (2018): 265-286.
“Between Myths, Memories, History and Politics: Creating Content for Moscow’s Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center.” The Public Historian 40, no. 4 (2018): 91-106.
“Philanthropy, Diplomacy and Jewish Internationalism.” In: The Cambridge History of Judaism, Volume VIII: The Modern Period, c. 1815 – c. 2000. Edited by Mitchell Hart and Tony Michels. Cambridge University Press, 2017.
“Jewish Threads in the Fabric of International History.” In: International History in Theory and Practice. Edited by Barbara Haider-Wilson, William Godsey, Wolfgang Mueller, pp. 477-500. Vienna: Verlag der Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2017.
“Dueling Visions of Rebirth: Interwar Palestine versus Soviet Russia,” Journal of Jewish Identities 9, no. 2 (July 2016): 139-157.
“Rethinking Boundaries in the Jewish Diaspora from the FSU.” In: The New Jewish Diaspora: Russian-Speaking Immigrants in the United States, Israel and Germany. Edited by Zvi Gitelman, pp. 77-88. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2016.
“Faith Meets Politics and Resources: Reassessing Modern Transnational Jewish Activism.” In: Purchasing Power: The Economics of Modern Jewish History. Edited by Rebecca Kobrin and Adam Teller, pp. 216-237. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015.
“Liberal Answers to the ‘Jewish Question’: Then and Now.” In: Church and Society in Modern Russia. Edited by Elise Wirtschafter and Manfred Hildermeier, pp. 133-156. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2015
“East European Jewish Migration: Inside and Outside,” East European Jewish Affairs 44, no. 3 (December 2014): 154-170.
"A Durable Harvest: Reevaluating the Russia-Israel Axis in the Jewish World." In: Bounded Mind and Spirit: Russia and Israel, 1880-2010. Edited by Brian Horowitz and Shai Ginsburg, pp. 109-129. Bloomington, IN: Slavica Publishers, 2013.
“Activism as Engine: Jewish Internationalism, 1880s-1980s.” In: Religious Internationals in the Modern World: Globalization and Faith Communities since 1750, pp. 269-291. Edited by Abigail Green and Vincent Viaene. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
“Crimea 2008: A Lesson about Uses and Misuses of History,” East European Jewish Affairs 39, no. 1 (April 2009): 101-105.
“‘New’ Jews of the Agricultural Kind: A Case of Soviet Interwar Propaganda,” Russian Review 66 (July 2007): 424-50.
“An Unlikely Triangle: Philanthropists, Commissars, and American Statesmanship Meet in Soviet Crimea, 1922-37.” Diplomatic History 27, no. 3 (2003): 353-376.
“Farmers, Philanthropists, and Soviet Authority: Rural Crimea and Southern Ukraine, 1923-1941.” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 4, no. 4 (Fall 2003): 849-885.
Miriam Frenkel is associate professor in the Department for Jewish History, where she also serves as B.A advisor, and in the School of History. She is head of the Multi Disciplinary Program and of the Dinur Center for the Study of Jewish History.
Prof. Frenkel studies Jewish medieval history under Islam, her works being mainly based on the reach documentation found in the Cairo Geniza. Her articles and books concern social and cultural aspects of Jewish life in the medieval world of Islam, such as: charity and giving, pilgrimage, travels, material culture, literacy and book culture. She is also the editor of a text book on cultural encounters between Judaism and Islam in the Middle- Ages.
Associate Professor at the Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry and a fellow at the Research Institute of Contemporary Jewry at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem; was the institute’s head in the years 2020-2024.Academia.edu page: https://huji.academia.edu/AmosGoldberg
Amos Goldberg’s research focuses primarily on the cultural and literary history of Jews during the Holocaust, the study of trauma, the historiography of the Holocaust and of modern Genocides, and on Holocaust and Genocide memories in the global age.
His book Trauma in First Person: Diary Writing during the Holocaust (Indiana University Press, 2017) won the Egit prize for Holocaust research and literature and was listed as an outstanding academic title for 2018 by Choice, the periodical of the Association of College and Research Libraries.
Amos’s current research focuses on two major topics: 1) the cultural history of the Warsaw Ghetto—including rumor culture, coffee houses, the ghetto jester, and more; and 2) Holocaust memories in global and local contexts and particularly of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict .
His books and articles have been published in English, Hebrew, Polish, French, German, Italian, Czeck, Japanese and Arabic.
He is a research fellow at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, serves on the scientific committee of the Van Leer Institute Press.
From 2007 to 2013 Amos was co-editor of the bilingual journal Dapim: Studies on the Holocaust (Taylor and Francis).
He served as a visiting scholar at Cornell University; a visiting lecturer at Clark University’s Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies; a senior research fellow at the Ralph Bunche Institute in the CUNY Graduate Center; as the 2018-2019 J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Senior Scholar-in- Residence Fellow at the Mandel Center at The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; and as the 2023 Gabriele Rosenthal senior fellow at the Institut für die Geschichte der deutschen Juden (IGdJ) in Hamburg.
In the years 2018-2021 he participates in the research group on “Empathy in the Social Sciences, the Humanities and in Culture” at the Scholion Interdisciplinary Center at the Hebrew University.
Goldberg was awarded a research grant from the Israel Science Foundation, and has won numerous prizes and grants.
Selected Publications
Amos Goldberg, And you Shall Remember: Five Critical Readings in Holocaust Memory, Tel Aviv: Resling 2024 (Hebrew, forthcoming)
Dr. David Guedj is a Senior lecturer at the Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry and the Head of Misgav Yerushalayim research Center for the heritage of Sephardi Jewry.
Dr. Guedj is a historian of the Jews in Muslim countries. His research interests are focused on Intellectual history of Jews in Muslim countries in the 19th and 20th centuries; The development and modernization of a polyglot book culture in 20th century Morocco; The Maghreb during WW2 and the Holocaust; Childhood, youth and family in Jewish communities across Muslim countries; Visual and literary images of Jews from Muslim countries in their native lands and in Israel.
His first book, The Hebrew Culture in Morocco, explores the Attitudes of Moroccan Jewry toward the Hebrew language and the building of Hebrew culture during the colonial period (1912-1956). Currently he is working on a monograph tentatively titled: The development and modernization of a Jewish polyglot book culture in 20th century Morocco.
Dr. Noah Hacham is a researcher and teacher. Senior lecturer in the Dept. of Jewish History and Contemporary Judaism, and member of the research group "question of identity" Mandel-Scholion interdisciplinary center.
MA and PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Wrote his doctoral dissertation on the historical significance of the Third Book of Maccabees, under the supervision of Professor Daniel Schwartz, and specializes in the history of Diaspora Jewry during the Second Temple, Mishna and the Talmud, especially Hellenistic Jewish Diaspora. In addition, also explores rabbinic literature in its historical contexts.
His current research project together with Professor Tal Ilan (Free University of Berlin) is preparing the fourth volume of a collection of Jewish papyri (Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum). This collection reveals and shows everyday life of the Jews in Egypt, during the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine periods, and enable us to understand different aspects of the history of the Jews in this important diaspora community.
Among his publications:
'The Letter of Aristeas: A New Exodus Story? ', Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman Period 36 (2005), pp. 1-20
‘Exile and Self-Identity in the Qumran Sect and in Hellenistic Judaism’, E. Chazon & B. Halpern-Amaru (eds.), New Perspectives on Old Texts: Proceedings of the 10th International Symposium of the Orion Center for the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, 9-11 January, 2005, Brill: Leiden 2010, pp. 3-21
‘Where Does the Shekhinah Dwell? Between Dead Sea Sect, Diaspora Judaism and Rabbinic Literature’, A. Lange, E. Tov, M. Weigold (eds.), The Dead Sea Scrolls in Context: Integrating the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Study of Ancient Texts, Languages, and Cultures, vol. 1, (SVT 140/1), Brill: Leiden & Boston , 2011, pp. 399-412
‘Sanctity and the Attitude towards the Temple in Hellenistic Judaism’, D.R. Schwartz & Zeev Weiss (eds.), Was 70 C.E. a Watershed in Jewish History? On Jews and Judaism before and after the Destruction of the Second Temple, (AJEC 78), Brill: Leiden 2012, pp. 155-179
‘Between mĕšûbâ and môšābâ: On the Status of Diaspora Jews in the Period of Redemption According to the Septuagint and Hellenistic Judaism’, Melvin K.H. Peters (ed.), XIV Congress of the IOSCS, Helsinki, 2010 (SBL Septuagint and Cognate Studies, 59), Atlanta 2013, pp. 127-142
'Bigthan and Teresh and the Reason Gentiles Hate Jews', Vetus Testamentum 62 (2012), pp. 318-356
‘The High Priesthood and Onias’ Temple: The Historical Meaning of a Rabbinic Story’,Zion 78 (2013), pp. 439-469 [Hebrew]
PhD from the Hebrew University, teaches modern social history and specializes in the Jewish community of Mandate era Palestine and the first years of Israeli statehood.
Prof. Oded Irshai's scholarly interests and teaching curriculum revolve around the history and culture of the Jews in Late Antiquity under the umbrella of a Christian-Roman Empire. At the center of his research lies the dialogue and polemics with the Christian world and by extension also the manner in which it influenced the Christian self-identity. Some of his studies are posted on the worldwide web via the website of academia.
Yael Levi is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry and teaches in the Yiddish Program. Her research focuses on the cultural and social history of Yiddish speakers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Jewish immigration, the Yiddish press, and modern Yiddish literature. Her research integrates history, literature, and the study of emotions.
Alongside her research, she translates Yiddish poetry into Hebrew. Her first book, The Spirit that Materials Bear (Eyruvin, 2022), is a bilingual collection of the Yiddish poetry of Devorah Fogel (1900-1942). Her second book, From the Cellar to the Top Floor (Magnes Press, 2024), traces the Hebrew letter press across the Atlantic following the mass Jewish immigration and tells the story of the emergence of the Hebrew and Yiddish press in the United States in the last third of the nineteenth century. Her current research offers a spatial history of Yiddish-speaking immigrants in the United States in the early 1900s.
Avigail Manekin-Bamberger completed her PhD at Tel Aviv University and was later a postdoctoral fellow at the Martin Buber Society of Fellows at the Hebrew University. Her research focuses on the social and cultural history of Jews in antiquity, with a special emphasis on Jewish society in the Sasanian Empire and ancient magic. Her first book “Seder Mazikin: Law and Magic in Late Antique Jewish Society” (Yad Ben Zvi, 2024) questions the scholarly dichotomy between ancient Jewish law and magic by arguing that legal formulations constituted an essential part of Jewish magical texts and Jewish legal terms were often invested with a metaphysical meaning. She is currently working on a synthetic social history of the Jews in the Sasanian empire focusing on the daily life of Jewish individuals, the scope of rabbinic authority over popular Jewish groups, and the boundaries between Jewish and Christian communities. Dr. Manekin-Bamberger has published articles on various aspects of rabbinic literature, ancient Jewish magic and demonology and ancient Jewish culture within its broader context.
Uzi Rebhun is a demographer. His research focuses on American Jewry and the population of Israel. Utilizing quantitative data through methods from the social sciences he explores topics such as internal and international migration, family and marriage, religious and ethnic identification, social and economic stratification, anti-Semitism, and Israel-Diaspora relations. His recent books include American Israelis: Migration, Transnationalism, and Diasporic identity (with L. Lev Ari, Brill 2010); and Jews and the American Religious Landscape (Columbia University Press, 2016). His current research is on Israelis in Germany.
Prof. Rebhun is the Vice-Dean for Teaching of the Faculty of Humanities; and also serves as chair of the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry.
In the past his was the head of the Honors program "Revivim"; and director of the Cherrick Center for the study of Zionism, the Yishuv, and the State of Israel.
Major research interests are Jewish magical texts, the reception of the Hebrew Bible in Jewish traditions, the Haskalah movement, and 'Wissenschaft des Judentums'. With special interest in reconstructing Jewish reading cultures in Central and Eastern Europe from the early modern period onward.
Daniel Schwartz is a historian of the Second Temple Period. Born in the USA in 1952, he moved to Israel in 1971 and then began his studies of Jewish and general history at the Hebrew University, eventually completing three degrees; his 1979 doctoral dissertation was devoted to ancient attitudes toward the Temple of Jerusalem. His research focuses on Jewish history in the Second Temple period, especially upon ancient historiography. Among his books: annotated commentaries to the Second Book of Maccabees (2004 in Hebrew, 2008 in English) and Josephus’s Vita (2007); Agrippa I: The Last King of Judaea (1987 in Hebrew, 1990 in English); Reading the First Century: On Reading Josephus and Studying Jewish History of the First Century (2013); Judeans and Jews: Four Faces of Dichotomy in Ancient Jewish History (2014); and Between Jewish Posen and Scholarly Berlin: The Life and Letters of Philipp Jaffé (2017). Alongside teaching and research, he has held numerous administrative positions in the University; He is currently the Academic Head of the Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel School for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Prof. Dmitry Shumsky is Israel Goldstein Chair in the History of Zionism and the New Yishuv at the Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry, and Director of the Bernard Cherrick Center for the study of Zionism, the Yishuv, and the State of Israel at the Hebrew University.
His research interests include intellectual and political history of Zionism and modern Jewish nationalism, with an emphasis on its Central and East European contexts; history of Austro-Hungarian Jewries, including the effects of emancipation discourse, modernization projects, ethnic and national struggles, and social and cultural conflicts on Jewish life and the Jewish perceptions of Jewish-Gentile relations; Soviet Jewish history and the study of post-Soviet migration.
His book Between Prague and Jerusalem: Prague Zionists and the Origins of the Idea of Binational State in Palestine (published in Hebrew by Shazar Center & Leo Baeck, 2010), won the Hecht Prize for the Best Book in Israel Studies for 2011. A German version of this book has been published in 2013 by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen. His scholarly publications appeared in a number of leading journals in the Jewish Studies, including Zion, AJS Review, Jewish Social Studies, Jewish History, The Jewish Quarterly Review, as well as in The Russian Review, a leading journal in the Eastern European Studies.
Prof. Shumsky teaches broadly in European Jewish history from early modern to contemporary times, including courses in history of the origins and phenomenology of modern Jewish nationalisms; the Zionist ideology; the formation of modern Jewish culture in the Bohemian lands; emancipation, acculturation and identity in the Central and Eastern Europe; ethnicity, identity and conflict in Israeli society.
Prof. Shumsky was a Mandel Fellow at Scholion, the Interdisciplinary Research Center in Jewish Studies at the Hebrew University (now Interdisciplinary Research Center in the Humanities and Jewish Studies). He stayed as a guest scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, University of Leipzig, and University of Munich. Since 2008 Prof. Shumsky won three ISF grants.
Prof. Yfaat Weiss teaches at the Department for the History of the Jewish People and Contemporary Jewry since 2008. She is acting as the director of the Franz Rosenzweig Minerva Center since 2010, and as the Director of the Simon Dubnow Institute for Jewish history and Culture at Leipzig University since 2017.
Between 2008 and 2011 she served as head of the School of History and in 2015 as Vice Dean for Research at the Faculty of Humanities. She is also a board member of the I-Core Center "Daat Hamakom" for the Study of Cultures of Place in the Modern Jewish World.
Prof. Weiss began her studies at Hamburg University in Germany, where she specialized in German-Jewish history. In her doctoral dissertation, written at Tel Aviv University, she investigated the reciprocal relations between German Jewry and Polish Jewry following the Nazis' rise to power in Germany. In the late 1990s she taught at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, and between 2000 and 2007 served as head of the Bucerius Institute for Research of Contemporary German History and Society at Haifa University.
Alongside her work in Israel she has spent time over the past decade as a visiting scholar at the Historisches Kolleg in Munich, the Friedrich Schlegel Graduate School of Literary Studies at the Free University of Berlin, the Internationales Forschungszentrum Kulturwissenschaften in Vienna, the Simon Dubnow Institute for Jewish History and Culture at Leipzig University, the Hamburg Institute for Social Research, the Remarque Institute at NYU, the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem, the Social Science Research Center Berlin, and the Europe Institute at Stanford University.
Her research operates in three arenas: German and Central European history, Jewish history, and Israeli history. It engages questions of citizenship, migration and sovereignty, as well as cultural heritage and transfer of knowledge, in comparative and spatial perspectives. Prof. Weiss works have won her the Hanna Arendt Prize for Political Thought in 2012 and the Polonsky Prize for Creativity and Originality in the Humanistic Disciplines in 2015.
Selected publications:
Ulrich Bielefeld & Yfaat Weiss, "…als Gelegenheitsgast, ohne jedes Engagement…". Jean Améry, München: Fink, 2014.
Amir Eshel & Yfaat Weiss (eds.), Kurz hinter der Wahrheit und dicht neben der Lüge: Zum Werk Barbara Honigmanns, München: Fink, 2013.
Yfaat Weiss, Lea Goldberg, Lehrjahre in Deutschland 1930-1933, Toldot – Essays zur jüdischen Geschichte und Kultur, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2010.
Mahmoud Yazbak & Yfaat Weiss, Haifa Before & After 1948. Narratives of a Mixed City, Hague: Republic of Letters, 2012.
Yfaat Weiss, A Confiscated Memory: Wadi Salib and Haifa’s lost Heritage, New York: Colombia University Press, 2011.
Daniel Levy & Yfaat Weiss, (eds.), Challenging Ethnic Citizenship: German and Israeli Perspectives on Immigration, New York: Berghahn, 2002.
Yfaat Weiss, Staatsbürgerschaft und Ethnizität. Deutsche und polnische Juden am Vorabend des Holocaust, Schriftenreihe der Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte. München: Oldenbourg, 2000.
Academic Interests: Pottery Neolithic and Chalcolithic of the southern Levant; Transregional Interactions; Middle and Late Bronze Age; Chronology; Radiocarbon Dating; Ceramic Typology; Iconography
Dr. Amitai Baruchi-Unna deals with history and historiography of the ancient Near East, particularly in Israel and Assyria. He is also interested in the history of worship in Israel, in search of ritual and other local traditions of cities in the Land of Israel. He published studies on the Book of Kings, on Assyrian royal inscriptions, and on the local traditions of Bethel and Jerusalem. In teaching political, cultural, geographical, and religious history of Israel in Biblical times, Dr. Baruchi-Unna emphasizes the broad context of Israel as an integral part of the ancient Near East, and the importance of critical unmediated reading of ancient sources.
Teaching fellow in the section of Biblical Period of the Department of Jewish History (since 2010)
Golda Meir fellow (2005)
Fellow in the 'Researchers of Jerusalem' program of Yad Ben Zvi Institute (2012-2013)
Selected publications
The Book of Kings
The story of Hezekiah's Prayer (2 Kings 19) and Jeremiah's Polemic Concerning the Inviolability of Jerusalem, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 39.3 (2015), pp. 281-297
Two Clearings of Goats (I Kings 20: 27): An Interpretation Supported by an Akkadian Parallel, Journal of Biblical Literature 133/2 (2014), 247-249
Jehuites, Ahabites, and Omrides: Blood Kinship and Bloodshed, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament (forthcoming)
Assyrian royal inscriptions
Genres Meet: Assurbanipal's Prayer in the Inscription L4 and the Bilingual Communal Lamentations, in Time and History in the Ancient Near East - Proceedings of the 56th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Barcelona, July 26-30, 2010, eds. Lluis Feliu, et al. (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2013), pp. 611-623
Religion, Politics, and War: Gestures toward Babylonia in the Imgur-Enlil Inscription of Shalmaneser III of Assyria, ORIENT: Report of the Society for Near Eastern Studies in Japan 49 (2014), pp. 3-18
Esarhaddon's Prayer in the Inscription AsBbA as related to the mīs pî Ritual, Journal of Cuneiform Studies (forthcoming)
Reporting the Content of Divine Positive Response (annu kēnu) in Assyrian Royal Inscriptions, in “Now it happened in those days”: Studies in Biblical, Assyrian, and other Ancient Near Eastern Historiography presented to Mordechai Cogan on his 75th Birthday, eds. S. Aḥituv, A. Baruchi-Unna, I. Ephʾal, T. Forti, and J.H. Tigay (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, forthcoming)
Local traditions
The Story of the Zeal of Phinehas and Congregational Weeping at Bethel, Vetus Testamentum 65 (2015), pp. 505-515
City of Justice: Jerusalem as Embodiment of Justice in the Prophecy of Isaiah son of Amoz, in, Study of Jerusalem through the Ages, eds. Y. Ben Arieh et al. (Jerusalem: Yad Ben Zvi, 2015), pp. 9-18 (Hebrew)
This is your God(s): Plural Forms Referring to the Noun Elohim and the Israelite Cultic Declaration, Shnaton. An Annual for Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies 25 (2016), pp. 141-152 (forthcoming; Hebrew)
Historical geography
Benjaminite Cities in Micah 1 in Light of a New Emendation, Judea and Samaria Research Studies 18 (2009), pp. 43-51 (Hebrew)
Geography of Biblical Land of Israel, in Jewish Study Bible2, eds. A. Berlin
and M. Z. Brettler (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 2119-2124
Academic Interests: Pottery Neolithic and Chalcolithic of the southern Levant; Transregional Interactions; Middle and Late Bronze Age; Chronology; Radiocarbon Dating; Ceramic Typology; Iconography
Current Projects:
• Between Collapse and Consolidation – The southern Levant at the Transition from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age
• Excavations at Area S of Tel Lachish (starting 2017) in cooperation Dr. Felix Höflmayer (Austrian Academy of Sciences), funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF Grant No: Y 932-G25)
• Ein el-Jarba Excavation project (2013-2016), funded by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation (Grant No.: 10.14.2.048)
Education:
2012-2016: Hebrew Universityof Jerusalem:PhD in Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Advisor: Prof. Yosef Garfinkel
Thesis title: The Near East Before Borders: Cultural Interaction between Mesopotamia, the Levant and Lower Egypt at 5800 - 5200 BC
2009-2012: Hebrew Universityof Jerusalem:MA in Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies, summa cum laude, Advisor: Prof. Yosef Garfinkel
Thesis: Re-evaluating the Ubaid: Synchronizing 6th and 5th millennium BC Mesopotamia and the Levant
2006-2009: University of Oxford: BA in Archaeology & Anthropology
2004-2005: Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg: Zwischenprüfung in Medieval Archaeology and Prehistory
Selected Publications:
Edited Volumes:
Ganor, S.; Kreimerman, I.; Streit, K. and M. Mumcuoglu (2016): From Sha'ar Hagolan to Shaaraim: Essays in honor of Prof. Yosef Garfinkel. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society.
Articles: (peer reviewed)
Streit, K. (2016): Exploring the Wadi Rabah Culture from the 6th millennium cal BCE: Further Excavations at Ein el-Jarba in the Jezreel Valley, Israel (2015–2016). Strata: The Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society 34: 11—38.
Streit, K. (2016): The Near East before Borders: Recent Excavations at Ein el-Jarba (Israel) and the Cultural Interactions of the 6th millennium cal B.C.E. Near Eastern Archaeology 79(4): 236—245.
Streit, K. andHöflmayer, F. (2016): Archaeomagnetism, Radiocarbon Dating, and the Problem of Circular Reasoning in Chronological Debates – Reply to Stillinger et al. (2016). Near Eastern Archaeology 79(4): 233—235.
Streit, K. (2015): Exploring the Wadi Rabah Culture of the 6th millennium cal BC: Renewed Excavations at Ein el-Jarba in the Jezreel Valley, Israel (2013-2015). Strata 33: 11-34.
Streit, K (2015): Interregional Contacts in the 6th millennium BC: Tracing Foreign Influences in the Holemouth Jar from Ein el-Jarba, Israel. Levant 47(3): 255-266.
Streit, K. and Garfinkel, Y. (2015): A Specialized Ceramic Assemblage for Water Pulling: The Middle Chalcolithic Well of Tel Tsaf. Bulletin of the American School of Oriental Research 374: 61-73.
Streit, K. and Garfinkel, Y. (2015): Tel Tsaf and the impact of the Ubaid culture on the southern Levant: Interpreting the radiocarbon evidence. Radiocarbon 57(5): 865-880.
Streit, K. and Garfinkel, Y. (2015): Horned figurines made of stone from the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods and the domestication of sheep and goat. Palestine Exploration Quarterly 147(1): 39-48.
Garfinkel, Y.; Streit, K.; Ganor, S.; Reimer, P.J. (2015): King David’s City at Khirbet Qeiyafa: Results of the second radiocarbon dating project. Radiocarbon 57(5): 881-890.
Garfinkel, Y.; Streit, K. and Ganor, S. (2012): State formation in Judah: Biblical tradition, modern historical theories and radiometric datings from Khirbet Qeiyafa. Radiocarbon 54(3-4): 359-369.
Articles: (edited volumes)
Mazar, A.; and Streit, K. (in press): Chapter 48 - Radiometric dates from Tel Rehov. In: Mazar, A. (eds.): Excavations at Tel Rehov. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society
Streit, K. (2016): Protohistoric Infant Jar Burials of the Southern Levant in Context: Tracing Cultural Influences in the Late Sixth and Fifth Millennia BCE. In: Ganor, S.; Kreimerman, I.; Streit,K. and M. Mumcuoglu (2016): From Sha'ar Hagolan to Shaaraim: Essays in honor of Prof. Yosef Garfinkel. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society.
Streit, K.; Favis, R.; Garfinkel, Y. (in press): Final publication of Kaplan’s 1966 excavation at Ein el-Jarba. In: Gopher, A. (ed.): Kaplan’s Protohistoric Excavations in Israel.
Garfinkel, Y.; and Streit, K. (2014): Radiometric dating of the Iron Age city. In: Garfinkel, Y.; Ganor, S.; Hasel, M. (eds.): Khirbet Qeiyafa Vol. 2. Excavation Report 2009-2013: Stratigraphy and Architecture (Areas B, C, D, E). Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society.
Book Reviews:
Streit, K. (2016): Review of „‘Interpreting the Late Neolithic of Upper Mesopotamia‘ edited by O.P. Nieuwenhuyse, R. Bernbeck, P.M.M.G. Akkermans, and J. Rogasch“. American Journal of Archaeology.
Dr. Noah Hacham is a researcher and teacher. Senior lecturer in the Dept. of Jewish History and Contemporary Judaism, and member of the research group "question of identity" Mandel-Scholion interdisciplinary center.
PhD from the Hebrew University, teaches modern social history and specializes in the Jewish community of Mandate era Palestine and the first years of Israeli statehood.
Dr. Noah Hacham is a researcher and teacher. Senior lecturer in the Dept. of Jewish History and Contemporary Judaism, and member of the research group "question of identity" Mandel-Scholion interdisciplinary center.
MA and PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Wrote his doctoral dissertation on the historical significance of the Third Book of Maccabees, under the supervision of Professor Daniel Schwartz, and specializes in the history of Diaspora Jewry during the Second Temple, Mishna and the Talmud, especially Hellenistic Jewish Diaspora. In addition, also explores rabbinic literature in its historical contexts.
His current research project together with Professor Tal Ilan (Free University of Berlin) is preparing the fourth volume of a collection of Jewish papyri (Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum). This collection reveals and shows everyday life of the Jews in Egypt, during the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine periods, and enable us to understand different aspects of the history of the Jews in this important diaspora community.
Among his publications:
'The Letter of Aristeas: A New Exodus Story? ', Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman Period 36 (2005), pp. 1-20
‘Exile and Self-Identity in the Qumran Sect and in Hellenistic Judaism’, E. Chazon & B. Halpern-Amaru (eds.), New Perspectives on Old Texts: Proceedings of the 10th International Symposium of the Orion Center for the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, 9-11 January, 2005, Brill: Leiden 2010, pp. 3-21
‘Where Does the Shekhinah Dwell? Between Dead Sea Sect, Diaspora Judaism and Rabbinic Literature’, A. Lange, E. Tov, M. Weigold (eds.), The Dead Sea Scrolls in Context: Integrating the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Study of Ancient Texts, Languages, and Cultures, vol. 1, (SVT 140/1), Brill: Leiden & Boston , 2011, pp. 399-412
‘Sanctity and the Attitude towards the Temple in Hellenistic Judaism’, D.R. Schwartz & Zeev Weiss (eds.), Was 70 C.E. a Watershed in Jewish History? On Jews and Judaism before and after the Destruction of the Second Temple, (AJEC 78), Brill: Leiden 2012, pp. 155-179
‘Between mĕšûbâ and môšābâ: On the Status of Diaspora Jews in the Period of Redemption According to the Septuagint and Hellenistic Judaism’, Melvin K.H. Peters (ed.), XIV Congress of the IOSCS, Helsinki, 2010 (SBL Septuagint and Cognate Studies, 59), Atlanta 2013, pp. 127-142
'Bigthan and Teresh and the Reason Gentiles Hate Jews', Vetus Testamentum 62 (2012), pp. 318-356
‘The High Priesthood and Onias’ Temple: The Historical Meaning of a Rabbinic Story’,Zion 78 (2013), pp. 439-469 [Hebrew]
PhD from the Hebrew University, teaches modern social history and specializes in the Jewish community of Mandate era Palestine and the first years of Israeli statehood.
My Dissertation, under the guidance of Professor Eli Lederhendler, deals with the involvement and activity of American Jewish organizations among Jewish Immigrants outside the U.S during the years 1921 – 1929.This project will enable to shed light on the response of the organized American Jewry to the challenges and difficulties of the Jewish migration after the U.S closed its gates.
Adi Namia Cohen is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her dissertation, supervised by Prof. Miriam Frenkel, deals with food and foodways among Jews in medieval Muslim lands. By studying food, she reveals the daily social, cultural, and religious lives of the Jews and their neighbors, "from market to table". Her research is mainly based on the Cairo Geniza documents as well as contemporary halakhic and medical literature, stories and poems, and traveler accounts. Adi also writes the culinary-historical blog "Eating in Jerusalem" for the Tower of David Museum, exploring food in Jerusalem across the years.
Sacred Violence Representations in Late Antiquity Between Jews and Christians
Supervisor: Prop. Oded Irshai
Late antiquity appears to be an extremely violent period, which is characterized with zeal and religious fervor, practiced by large groups of mob. The descriptions of the events arise from chronicles and other contemporary texts indicate that the Jews, alongside other Christian groups, took part in the brawls, occasionally out of self-defense, and sometimes as promoters, while espousing violent herd behavior, by means of incitement, as well as actual violent deeds.
Recently, the phenomenon of religious violence in late antiquity has been the subject of extensive research, which stems from the delineation of these centuries (4th to 7th) as a period of unique characteristics and as a relatively young research arena, alongside research in social history phenomena and the tendency toward interdisciplinarity. Surprisingly, the place of the Jews in this context is not yet thoroughly investigated.
My research aims to reveal the position of the Jews in the social fabric of late antiquity, and especially their image as emerge from the ecclesiastic historiography of the period. Similar to the paradigm set by Joan Wallach Scott, these issues may arise from an examination of the relationship between the following three factors: the represented historical event, it's representation and it's acceptance and interpretation among the population. Thus, this research will move on the tension between real and imagined reality while discussing the actual outcomes of the latter.
Previously Prof. Ben-Sasson had served as Rector of the Hebrew University, as Vice Dean of the Faculty of the Faculty of Humanities and as the President of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In the years 2012 to 2015 Prof. Ben-Sasson served as Chairman of the Council of Presidents of the Universities in Israel (VERA).
Prof Blatman main topics of research are East European Jews in the 20th century; Jewish labor movement in Eastern Europe; Polish Jews during the Holocaust its aftermath; Nazi concentration camps; Historiography of the Holocaust and genocide.
Sergio DellaPergola is Professor Emeritus and former Chairman of the Hebrew University’s Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry. Born in Italy 1942, in Israel since 1966.
Research interests: History of Israel and Its land within the Assyrian, Babylonian and Persian empires; West Semitic epigraphy; Ancient Near Eastern military history.
Fields of research: Iberian Jewry after the Expulsions, the Conversos and their Diaspora, the Western Sephardi Communities, the Intellectual Ferment in Early Modern Western Europe, the Western Sephardi and the Early Enlightenment
Previously Prof. Ben-Sasson had served as Rector of the Hebrew University, as Vice Dean of the Faculty of the Faculty of Humanities and as the President of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In the years 2012 to 2015 Prof. Ben-Sasson served as Chairman of the Council of Presidents of the Universities in Israel (VERA).
Before appointment as President of the University in 2009, Prof. Ben-Sasson served as a Member of the Knesset and as Chairman of its Constitution, Law and Justice Committee.
Prof. Ben-Sasson is a researcher in the Department of History of the Jewish People in the Faculty of Humanities. As a historian of Jewish heritage in the Islamic world, he wrote books and articles on a variety of topics, including the Jewish communities in Muslim countries, relations between religion and economy, as well as law and spirituality as authoritative sources in the Eastern society of the Middle-Ages. He also specializes in research on the Maimonides, social and intellectual history, the literature of the Responsa and the works of the period of the Gaonim, research of the Genizah, as well as the works and leadership of R’ Saadia Gaon.
While in the past he served as editor and a member of the editorial board in a broad range of research publications, Prof. Ben-Sasson served as President of the World Union for Jewish Studies, as Vice President of the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture and as Chairman of the Ben-Zvi Institute for the study of Jewish Communities in the East, as also as a member of the Council of Yad-Vashem. In 2016 he was elected as a member of the European Academy of Science and Arts.
A list of Prizes:
1978-1979 Research Grant of the Ministry for Education and Culture;
Center for Integration of the Heritage of Oriental Jewry
1980 The Hebrew Univ., Research Fellows' Prize
1980-1981 Moritz and Scharlota Warburg Prize
1982-1983 Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture (Doctoral Scholarship)
1983-1984 Rothschild Fellowship
1985-1988 Alon Fund of the Israeli Council for Higher Education
1996/7 Feher Prize for Jewish History, and
1996/7 The Ben-Zvi Prize for the Study of Jewish Heritage.
2010 Honorary doctoral degree from The Jewish Theological Seminary
Link to YouTube:
The YouTube channel of the University has an abundance of speeches by Prof. Ben-Sasson from a profusion of events: Board of Governors, scholarship award ceremonies and conferences
Contact details: The Office of the President is located in the Administration Building on the Mount Scopus Campus, second floor, room 07. Reception, by appointment.
Prof Blatman main topics of research are East European Jews in the 20th century; Jewish labor movement in Eastern Europe; Polish Jews during the Holocaust its aftermath; Nazi concentration camps; Historiography of the Holocaust and genocide.
Sergio DellaPergola is Professor Emeritus and former Chairman of the Hebrew University’s Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry. Born in Italy 1942, in Israel since 1966. M.A., Political Sciences, University of Pavía; Ph.D., Social Sciences and Contemporary Jewry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Specialist on the demography of world Jewry, published or edited numerous books and monographs including Israel and Palestine: The Power of Numbers (2008), Jewish Demographic Policies: Population Trends and Options (2011), Jewish Population and Identity: Concept and Reality (2018, with Uzi Rebhun), Diaspora vs. Homeland: Migration to Israel, 1991-2019 (2020), and over 300 papers on historical demography, the family, international migration, Jewish identification, antisemitism, and population projections. Lectured at universities and research centers in five continents and was senior policy consultant to the President of Israel, the Israeli Government, Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, and major international organizations. Former chief editor of Hagira – Israel Journal of Migration. Winner of the Marshall Sklare Award for distinguished achievement by the Association for the Social Scientific Study of Jewry (1999), and the Michael Landau Prize for Demography and Migration (2013). Member of the Board of the Jewish Policy Research Institute in London, and of Yad Vashem's committee for the Righteous of the Nations in Jerusalem.
Research interests: History of Israel and Its land within the Assyrian, Babylonian and Persian empires; West Semitic epigraphy; Ancient Near Eastern military history.
Fields of research: Iberian Jewry after the Expulsions, the Conversos and their Diaspora, the Western Sephardi Communities, the Intellectual Ferment in Early Modern Western Europe, the Western Sephardi and the Early Enlightenment
Academic Functions: Chairman of the Historical Society of Israel, 1992-2000; Director of the School of History at the Hebrew University, 2001-2004; Chairman of the World Union of Jewish Studies, 2009-2013; since 2013 Chairman of the Humanities Division of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.
Prizes and Awards: Ben Zvi Prize (2003) and Israel Prize (2013). In 2012 he was awarded an Advanced Grant from the European Research Council (ERC).
Since 2004 he is a member of the Israel Academy for Sciences and Humanities.
The Stephen S. Wise Chair in American Jewish History, and Institutions in the Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry.
Eli Lederhendler is a modern historian who teaches on the American and European Jewish experience. He has research interests that include Jewish political history, Jews in the history of international migrations, and the history of economic relations in Jewish society.
Born in the US (1952), BA, Columbia University; M.A. and Ph.D. from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Appointed to the faculty at Hebrew University in 1991. He is currently the vice-dean for research in the Faculty of Humanities. He has served in past years as head of the Institute of Contemporary Jewry as well as head of the Institute of History.
Eli Lederhendler's main areas of research include modern Jewish history in Europe and the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries; migration studies; Jewish cultural history; Yiddish culture.
Selected major publications:
The Road to Modern Jewish Politics (Oxford University Press, 1989)
New York Jews and the Decline of Urban Ethnicity 1950-1970 (Syracuse University Press, 2001)
Jewish Immigrants and American Capitalism, 1880-1920 (Cambridge University Press, 2009)
American Jewry: A New History(Cambridge University Press, 2016).
Co-editor of the annual journal, Studies in Contemporary Jewry
Israel Yuval is an historian of the jews in the middle ages
He is holding the Teddy Kollek Chair for Cultural Studies of Vienna and Jerusalem at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is teaching at the Department of Jewish History. In 2002 he founded Scholion - Research Center for Jewish Studies and was its head from 2002 till 2010. From 1998-2008 he was the head of Germania Judaica IV (together with Prof. Michael Toch, Jerusalem and Prof. Stefan Rohrbacher, Duisburg). In 2011-12 he was a co-editor of Tarbiz – A Quarterly in Jewish Studies. His book Scholars in Their Time: The Religious Leadership of German Jewry in the Late Middle Ages, 1988 won the Zalman Shazar Prize in Jewish history. His book “Two Nations in Your Womb”. Perceptions of Jews and Christians, Hebrew: Magnes Press 2000, won the Bialik Prize in Jewish studies and literature, 2002. An English translation was published in 2006 by the University of California Press, a German translation by Vandenhoeck&Ruprecht 2007 and a French translation by Albin Michel 2012. The book was the winner of "Le prix des amis de P.A. Bernheim" awarded by the French Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 2013.
In 2016 he was the recipient of Verdienstkreuz am Bande des Verdienstordens der Bundesrepublik Deutschland.
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