The Kimmerling Award For Best Graduate Paper
The Kimmerling Prize is awarded by the Association for Israel Studies for the best paper presented by a graduate student at the AIS annual meeting. This award honors the memory of Baruch Kimmerling (1939-2007), a leading public intellectual and sociologist in Israel. He wrote, published, and edited more than a dozen books on Israel and the Palestinians, introducing new perspectives for the understanding of Israeli society.
Graduate Students who presented papers at the AIS conference at Charles University, in 2024, are encouraged to submit their revised papers for the competition. Papers should be written in the format of an academic lecture and should include: the topic of the research, its objectives, the methodology used in the research, and a detailed explanation of the potential contribution of the paper to the existing literature in Israel studies.
The paper should include full citations and a bibliography of relevant academic works. The paper should be no more than 5,000 words in length (not including the bibliography). Candidates for the award must be current members of the Association for Israel Studies (newly registered or renewed membership for 2025). Please include contact information (including email) for confirmation and decision.
The winning paper will be published in Israel Studies Review, pending acceptable revisions. Papers submitted to other international journals or previously published in English are therefore not eligible for the Kimmerling competition.
Papers should be submitted electronically to the designated email address.
The prize awarded is $1,000.
Deadline for submissions: TBU
Past Recipients of the Kimmerling Prize:
– Paper presented at the 2024 meeting: Maytal Mark (New York University), “The Awakening of the Jewish World (1934): An Arabic History of Zionism.”
– Paper presented at the 2019 meeting: Hayim Katsman (University of Washington), “The Hyphen Cannot Hold: Contemporary Trends in Religious Zionism”.
– Paper presented at the 2018 meeting: Netta Galnoor (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem), “From Jewish Sentiments to Rational Exhortations: Battle Missives in the Israeli Defense Force 1948-2014”.
– Paper presented at the 2017 meeting: Adrian Krupnik (Tel Aviv University), “Between Return and a Hard Place: Argentinian Returnees from Israel in 1966”.
– Paper presented at the 2016 meeting: Geoffrey Levin (New York University), “Enlightening a Stained Democracy: The American Jewish Committee and Israel’s Palestinian Arab Minority, 1949-1966”.
– Paper presented at the 2015 meeting: Shaiel Ben-Ephraim (University of Calgary), “Allowing Kids to Become Goats: Israeli Settlements in the Occupied Territories”.
– Paper presented at the 2014 meeting: Shirly Bahar (New York University), “Un/believable Spec/tacles: Performances of Martyrdom and Masquerades of Terrorism in Mohammed Bakri’s Jenin Jenin and Since You Left”.
– Paper presented at the 2013 meeting: Dana Gold (Western University, Canada), “The Politics of Emotion: A Case Study of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict”.
– Paper presented at the 2012 meeting: Shay Hazkani (New York University), “Soldiers’ Political Indoctrination in the IDF, 1948-1957”.
– Paper presented at the 2011 meeting: Yoav Mehozay, “The FLuid Jurisprudence of Israel’s Emergency Powers: Legal Patchwork as a Governing Norm.”
– Paper presented at the 2010 meeting: Anat Stern, “Shortages and Civil Conduct: IDF Response to Civilian Criminality.”
– Paper presented at the 2009 meeting: Ziv Rubinovitz, “Blue & White ‘Black September’: Israel’s Role in the Jordan 1970 Crisis.”
– Paper presented at the 2008 meeting: Ben Herzog, “The Revocation of Citizenship in Israel.”