AIS 2026 Award Winners

Dear AIS Members and Friends,

The Association of Israel Studies is pleased to announce the recipients of its 2026 annual awards:

Professor Joel Migdal from the University of Washington (Emeritus) and Professor Margalit Shilo from Bar-Ilan University (Emerita) are the co-winners of the AIS Lifetime Achievement Award.

Dr. Gilly Hartal from Bar-Ilan University is the winner of the Gad Barzilai Early Career Award.

The co-winners of the Shapiro Award for Best Book in Israel Studies are: Dr. Elizabeth Imber for her book Uncertain Empire: Jews, Nationalism, and the Fate of British Imperialism (Stanford University Press, 2025) and Prof. Adam Ferziger for his book, Agents of Change: American Jews and the Transformation of Israeli Judaism (New York University Press, 2025).

Honorable Mention goes to Dr. Daniel Sobelman for his book Axis of Resistance: Asymmetric Deterrence and Rules of the Game in Contemporary Middle East Conflicts (State University of New York Press).

The winner of the Halpern Award for Best Dissertation in Israel Studies is Dr. Timea Crofony for her dissertation – The Intimate State of Israel: Politics of Desire and Secular Israeli Jews
(Charles University, Prague).

HonorableMention goes to Dr. Elad Nahshon for his dissertation, Religion and Secularity in the Herut Movement (1948–1977) (Bar-Ilan University).

The winner of the Kimmerling Award for Best Graduate Paper is Meirav Iboga Rasumni-Urşar (University of Haifa) for her paper BDS Protest on TikTok and the Cultural Politics of Delegitimation: BDS Memes, Abjection and ‘No Israel’ Logic.

The recipient of the AIS Dissertation Completion Grant is Gabriela Appel for her dissertation project entitled Food Waste at Hotels in Israel – Drivers and Interventions for Reduction.

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THIS YEAR’S AWARD WINNERS

This year the award committees considered many distinguished nominations, exceptional books and outstanding dissertations. Please join us in congratulating the 2026 awardees. See quotes by the award committees for each recipient below:

Professor Emeritus Joel Migdal is the co-winner of the AIS Lifetime Achievement Award.

Professor Migdal’s scholarship has had a significant impact on Israel Studies. As a groundbreaking and internationally recognized scholar in comparative politics, he has successfully brought a wider audience to Israel Studies and has used it as a lens through which to address broad theoretical questions about states and societies. He has written or co-authored thirteen books. His book, Through the Lens of Israel: Explorations in State and Society (State University of New York Press, 2001) is an influential and important book showing the many scholarly questions that can be tested through examining the case of Israel. His book, Shifting Sands: The United States in the Middle East (Columbia University Press, 2014) centers Israel as a strategic asset to the U.S. in the past and analyzes how an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement would renew the perceived value of Israel as a strategic asset. He has also authored countless articles and chapters focused on Israel Studies.

Professor Migdal has mentored many students over the years who were studying at least one aspect of Israel Studies, many of whom became prominent scholars in Israel Studies. Professor Migdal also taught multiple courses on Israel and was director of the Near and Middle East Interdisciplinary Ph.D. Program, University of Washington, 2010-2015, which included Israel Studies. 

In addition, Joel Migdal has shaped the AIS for decades. He was Vice-President of the AIS from 2001 to 2003 and AIS President from 2003 to 2005. He also served on the AIS Board for many years, served on many AIS award committees (including currently), and is a lifetime participant in AIS conferences.

Professor Emerita Margalit Shilo of the Martin (Szusz) Department of Land of Israel Studies, Bar-Ilan Universityis the co-winner of the AIS Lifetime Achievement Award. Professor Shilo reshaped the field of Israel Studies to include the gender aspect of nation-building. In over four decades of scholarship, she showed how the study of women’s history deepens our understanding of society as a whole and the meaning of nation-building. Starting in 1980 with her groundbreaking article on “The Women Workers’ Farm at Kinneret,” her work changed the research paradigm from a focus on top-down understandings of society to an understanding of the role of women and children in shaping society.

In seven of her nine books and over one hundred articles, most dealing with the history of women in the Yishuv, Shilo produced a comprehensive chronological mapping of Jewish women’s lives. Among her books are Princess or Prisoner? – a pioneering work that won the Bahat Prize and honorable mention for the Jewish Book Award; The Challenge of Gender; and The Struggle for the Vote. In her 2025 book, The First Female Knesset Members and the Status of Women in the Early Years of Israel, she examined, among other things, the legislation of the Women’s Equal Rights Law.

Professor Shilo built an academic infrastructure for gender studies in Israel Studies. She initiated the division of women’s and gender history in the Historical Society, worked on the committee that established the Gender Studies Department at Bar-Ilan University, and edited six research volumes on the subject in collaboration with researchers from across the country.

During decades of teaching (1986-2010), Shilo trained hundreds of students and supervised a total of twenty-seven research projects – half for master’s degrees and half for doctoral degrees – which produced twelve books on diverse topics.

She was also active in the AIS and its conferences over many years, also serving on its Board.

Dr. Gilly Hartal is the recipient of this year’s Gad Barzilai Early Career Award.  

From the outset, Dr. Hartal distinguished herself through a body of work that is both ambitious in scope and precise in execution. Her burgeoning research engages fundamental questions in Gender Studies with a focus on “Geographies of Sexualities,” while advancing innovative approaches that have already reshaped scholarly conversations in the field. Particularly noteworthy is Dr. Hartal’s ability to bridge theoretical insight with empirical depth, producing work that is as methodologically sound as it is conceptually compelling.

Dr. Hartal has published extensively, including nearly 30 articles in peer-reviewed academic journals, 10 book chapters, 2 encyclopedia entries, and has also guest-edited two special issues of leading academic journals in the field of Gender Studies. Dr. Hartal’s first co-authored book, LGBTQ+ Centers and Organizations: Spaces of Sexual Politics, Activism, and Social Relations, will be published in the coming months. She is also the co-editor of the forthcoming Routledge Handbook of Sexualities and Space.

Dr. Hartal has demonstrated an unusually high level of productivity and impact, with publications and projects that exceed typical expectations for scholars at a similar point in their professional development. Her work has garnered attention from leading scholars and institutions in Israel and around the world, signaling both current influence and significant future potential. Unsurprisingly, and quite remarkably, she has won three Israel Science Foundation (ISF) grants.

The co-winner of the Shapiro Award for Best Book in Israel Studies is Adam Ferziger for his book Agents of Change: American Jews and the Transformation of Israeli Judaism (New York University Press, 2025).

Leaning upon scholarly methods from history, immigration studies, and the social sciences, primarily religion and sociology of religion, Adam Ferziger attempts to document and map out the involvement, impact, and influence of a host of American Jewish educators, rabbis, and other spiritual leaders who immigrated to Israel on religious life, educational institutions and communal life, sacred learning, and religion in Israel. This is done by exploring developments within Reform, Conservative, and Modern Orthodox communities and institutions in Israel, as well as Israeli politics, and aspects such as gender.

By following individuals from their educational and religious background and upbringing in the United States through their re-settlement and activities in Israel, as well as placing a plethora of cases and a polyphony of voices, he provides a persuasive account of a broad, nuanced, and multifaceted set of influences over several decades. This all leads to a convincing case with much potential for further exploring and understanding various long-standing under-currents in Israeli society, culture, and Jewish identity, topics that any student of Israel Studies might find relevant.

The co-winner of the Shapiro Award for Best Book in Israel Studies is Elizabeth Imber for her book Uncertain Empire: Jews, Nationalism, and the Fate of British Imperialism (Stanford University Press, 2025).

Over the last decades we have witnessed an outpouring of studies that address the Jewish and Arab settlements in Mandatory Palestine (1917-1948), and their respective relationships with the British officials. While one might conclude that the available archival and other primary sources have been exhausted and this period has been documented and analyzed from every point of view, Elizabeth Imber’s study proves the opposite.

This study is not only extremely rich and thoroughly documented, it suggests exploring the Jewish Zionist enterprise from a comparative perspective on several levels: Individuals who held different political ideologies, thought, and imagined political futures, situated in different geographical areas within the British Empire (i.e. Mandatory Palestine, India, South Africa, and metropolitan Britain) or in similar areas but holding different positions (i.e. Zionist political leaders and British officials in Palestine). These are presented considering what evolved during this period and how these individuals experienced events and developments at various chronological junctions and consequently analyzed the present and foresaw Jewish political prospects in the future. Each one of these individuals formulated a working plan and acted accordingly.

The combination of meticulous and painstaking archival work and a sharp conceptual frame leads to a fascinating, nuanced, and well-written book that will be of great interest to scholars of Israel Studies, historians of Nationalism, and social scientists alike.

Honorable Mention goes to Daniel Sobelman for his book Axis of Resistance: Asymmetric Deterrence and Rules of the Game in Contemporary Middle East Conflicts (State University of New York Press, 2025).

Rather than documenting and analyzing the various tensions and conflicts among the different parties within the Middle East and the Persian Gulf, this timely book suggests exploring the full gamut of the “Axis of Resistance,” and poses two overarching arguments. The first one is that there is a common thread between all these conflicts namely, using a wide array of military means to reduce their vulnerability, enhance the vulnerability of their stronger enemies, and force their enemies to accept their rules of the game. The second argument is that this basic asymmetry in which the members of this axis recognize that they are weaker leads them to strive to limit the stronger enemy, be it Israel, Saudi Arabia, or the United States. They achieve this by compelling these stronger forces to accept their own vulnerability and the resilience of the axis members.

Based upon a host of sources in several languages, Daniel Sobelman argues persuasively for the advantages of this approach, leads his readers skillfully through one case after the other, and provides a strategic and regional analysis of the October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel that goes way beyond the tactical plans and the element of surprise.

Dr. Timea Crofony is the winner of the Halpern Award for Best Dissertation in Israel Studies. Her dissertation, The Intimate State of Israel: Politics of Desire and Secular Israeli Jews
(Charles University, Prague) is an ethnographic study of intimacy, desire, and secularity among secular Israeli Jews. It examines how “being secular” (hiloni) is lived, narrated, and embodied in everyday life, and how this self-understanding shapes intimate relationships, preferences, and personal decisions. By treating intimate relationships not merely as private matters but as sites where the state, social structures, political projects, and collective identities intersect, the dissertation offers a fresh and compelling lens for studying contemporary Israeli society.

Dr. Crofony’s work expands the field of Israel Studies beyond its more familiar focus on institutions, parties, and visible political struggles, and shows how political meanings are also produced in intimate and everyday arenas. The dissertation is based on rich ethnographic material and combines a sensitive reading of lived experience with a broader analytical argument about secularity, belonging, and Jewish continuity in Israel.

Honorable Mention goes to Elad Nahshon for his dissertation Religion and Secularity in the Herut Movement (1948–1977). Nahshon’s work is highly valued for the scope of its research, its analytical seriousness, its impressive command of historical material, and its important contribution to understanding one of the central arenas of Israeli politics. The committee regarded his dissertation as a significant, well-grounded, and well-written study, deserving of special recognition.

The winner of the Kimmerling Award for Best Graduate Paper isMeirav Iboga Rasumni-Urşar for her paper, BDS Protest on TikTok and the Cultural Politics of Delegitimation: BDS Memes, Abjection, and ‘No Israel’ Logic.

The committee found the paper distinctive both for its theoretical framework and its meticulous research. It is well written and superbly organized. The investigation probes how Israel is cast in social media giving rise to demands for BDS. It also examines how social media helps construct memes that become a social framework binding adherents to a cause and to one another. Methodologically, Rasumni-Urşar used both a qualitative digital ethnography and a multimodal content analysis to good effect.

Rasumni-Urşar argues that it is not ideology, the selling of an idea, that is at the core of the success of these hashtags. Rather, BDS became less of a political movement than one that binds its audience within a cultural milieu that creates moral boundaries. In her words, TikTok “foregrounds affect over deliberation.” The appeal is less to formal arguments than to emotional participation expressed through a variety of visual cues. In this way, Israel is not simply the subject of argued criticism but is something that is morally reprehensible, outside the boundaries of legitimate political order.

Gabriella Appel is the recipient of the AIS Dissertation Completion Grant for her dissertation project entitled Food Waste at Hotels in Israel – Drivers and Interventions for Reduction.

Ms. Appel’s dissertation examines a crucial topic, namely food waste at hotel breakfast buffets in Israel, positioning the project at the intersection of sustainability research, consumer behavior, and Israel Studies. The topic addresses a pressing issue with both local and global relevance, particularly given the significant contribution of the hospitality sector to food waste.

The committee was especially impressed by the project’s rigorous mixed-methods design, which integrates interviews with hotel managers and chefs, a large-scale survey of hotel guests, semi-structured interviews, and ethnography. The project makes a meaningful contribution to Israel Studies by grounding its analysis in Israel’s diverse social and cultural landscape. It highlights how everyday practices reflect broader societal dynamics, thereby expanding the field beyond its traditional focus on political and historical analysis.

THE AWARD COMMITTEES

We would also like to extend a hearty Thank You to all of the hard and dedicated work of the award committees:

The Lifetime Achievement Award Committee
Yael Aronoff (Chair)
Ilan Peleg
Aviva Halamish
Ilan Troen
Hanna Herzog

The Gad Barzilai Early Career Award Committee
Ilai Saltzman (Chair)
Irena Kalhousová 
Nohad Ali
Shelly Zer-Zion
Jonathan Gribetz 

The Yonathan Shapiro Best Book Award Committee
Kimmy Caplan (Chair)
Guy Ziv
Rami Zedan
Marcela Menachem Zoufala
Ofira Gruweis Kovalsky

The Halpern Best Dissertation Award Committee
Lilach Rosenberg Friedman (Chair)                                       
Yael Guilat                                                                
Marco DiGiuglio
Osnat Akirav
Geoff Levin

The Baruch Kimmerling Best Graduate Student Paper Committee
Joel Migdal (Chair)
Avi Picard
Chen Friedberg
Donna Robinson Divine

The Dissertation Completion Grant Committee
Niva Golan-Nadir (Chair)
Maoz Rosenthal
Chen Sharony
Naama Appel Doron
Joanna Dyduch

Sincerely,

The AIS Executive