FIRST TERM BOARD MEMBERS
| FIRST TERM BOARD MEMBER (2023-2027)The Open University of Israel|Read MoreThe Open University of Israel
Israel
Professor (emerita) Aviva Halamish is a historian at the Open University of Israel. Her research encompasses the history of the Jewish people and of Palestine in the twentieth century, focusing on the history of Zionism; Jewish immigration in the twentieth century including illegal Jewish immigration to Mandatory Palestine; history of the Yishuv and of the state of Israel; the kibbutz; and historical biography. She authored or edited over a dozen books and published scores of articles on various aspects of her fields of expertise. Among her books The Exodus Affair: Holocaust Survivors and the Struggle for Palestine (1998) and Kibbutz: Utopia and Politics / The Life and Times of Meir Yaari, (2017). Served as Vice President (2007-2009) and President (2009-2011) of the AIS and on various Nominations and Ad-hoc committees of the Association. Member, in the past and present, of Editorial Boards including The Journal of Israeli, Cathedra for the History of Eretz Israel and its Yishuv, Iyunim bi-Tkumat Israel, Moreshet: Journal for the Study of the Holocaust and Antisemitism; Yad Yitzhak Ben Zvi Press, The Ben-Gurion Research Institute Press. Founder and first Director and Editor-in-Chief, The Open University Press Member of Israel Council for Higher Education (2016-2022).
| FIRST TERM BOARD MEMBER (2024-2027)Ramat-Gan Academic College|Read MoreRamat-Gan Academic College
First-term board member and AIS officer of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.
Prof. Mohammed Wattad is a full professor of Law and president of Ramat-Gan Academic College. Between 2018 and 2024, he served as law school dean at Zefat Academic College, where he also served, between 2022 and 2023, as vice president for academic affairs. Besides, he is a Senior Researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel-Aviv University, a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Israeli Thought, a Research Fellow at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism at Reichman University, and a Research Fellow at the Minerva Center for the Rule of Law under Extreme Conditions at Haifa University. Between 2018 and 2021, he served as a Research Fellow at the International Center for Health, Law, and Ethics at Haifa University. In addition, he serves as an Adjunct Professor at several law schools in Israel and abroad. From 2014-2016, he served as a Visiting Associate Professor at the University of California at Irvine, both at the Department of Political Science and the School of Law. Between 2003 and 2004, he served as a legal clerk at the Supreme Court of Israel under the supervision of Justice Dalia Dorner.
Prof. Wattad is a legal scholar specializing in international and comparative criminal law, comparative constitutional law, international law, the laws of war, torture, and terrorism, conflict resolution, professional ethics, medical law, and the interaction between law and political science. Additionally, Prof. Wattad has expertise in the history of Israel and issues of self-image and identity in multicultural societies.
Prof. Wattad is a Haifa University School of Law graduate from Israel, having studied as an exchange student at Oxford University. Additionally, he accomplished higher academic education in Law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Columbia University, New York, in the USA, the Munk Center of Global Affairs & Public Policy and the Toronto University in Canada, the Max Planck Institute in Germany, and the International Institute of Higher Studies in Criminal Sciences in Italy. Wattad graduated with distinction from all academic institutions he attended and was on the Dean's List. During his studies, Prof. Wattad has received several prizes of excellence and other prestigious fellowships, including Fulbright, Halbert, Minerva, and Humboldt.
He is the 2020 winner of the prestigious Zeltner Young Scholar Award by the Faculty of Law at Tel-Aviv University and the 2015 winner of the prestigious Young Scholar Award on Israel Studies (the law field) by the Association for Israel Studies.
| FIRST TERM BOARD MEMBER (2023-2027)Michigan State University|Read MoreMichigan State University
USA
Vered Weiss is the Serling Israeli Visiting Scholar and The Israel Institute Teaching Fellow at The Michael and Elaine Serling Institute for Jewish Studies and Modern Israel at Michigan State University. Weiss is a faculty member in the Center for Integrative Studies in the Arts and Humanities, and teaches courses on Israeli culture, Israeli cinema and television, Hebrew literature, as well as world literature. Weiss is co-editor of Tracing Topographies: Revisiting the Concentration Camps Seventy Years after the Liberation of Auschwitz (Routledge, 2017), and is co-editing a volume about Israeli culture and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (Lexington, 2023). Her current research project explores the interplay between the location of marginalized characters and the ways in which narrative empathy is formulated in literature, and she is also collaborating on a co-edited book with Elana Gomel about Israeli speculative fiction (Liverpool University Press).
| FIRST TERM BOARD MEMBER (2023-2027)University of Tokyo|Read MoreUniversity of Tokyo
Japan
Taro Tsurumi is Associate Professor at the University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Arts and Science, Department of Area Studies. After getting Ph.D. at the University of Tokyo for his study on Russian Zionism, he stayed at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and New York University as a post doc. Specializing in Zionist history in the Russian-speaking world and beyond, and with a historical sociological perspective, he has endeavored to connect East European & Russian history with Israeli history. He has recently engaged in projects on the memory of pogroms in Eastern Europe and its impact on the Zionist perception of Palestine and its people and government. Along with many Japanese books and articles, his articles have been published in English journals including Jewish Social Studies and Nations and Nationalism as well as a few English books. He edited two English volumes including From Europe's East to the Middle East: Israel's Russian and Polish Lineages (eds. with Kenneth B. Moss and Benjamin Nathans, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021). He has organized and hosted several international conferences, and been a board member of a few Japanese associations, including Japan Society for Jewish Studies.
| FIRST TERM BOARD MEMBER (2023-2027)Boston University|Read MoreIsrael
| FIRST TERM BOARD MEMBER (2023-2027)Western Galilee College|Read MoreWestern Galilee College
Osnat Akirav is an associate professor in Political Science at the Western Galilee College, Israel. The head of the Galilee research institute and the Western Galilee College president's advisor for gender fairness at the Western Galilee College. Her specialization is in legislative studies, setting the agenda, candidate selection methods, local government, gender and politics, minorities and politics, research methods, and Israeli political system. In 2016 she was a visiting scholar at Stanford University. She has many publications on the representative behavior in local government and in parliaments. She served 10 years as a local council representative. In 2010 and in 2015 she received a prize for outstanding teaching in political science from the American Political Science Association. In 2012 she received Edmond Safra Award for outstanding achievement and excellence. And, in 2022 she received the New Pioneers Award from the Union Sefaradi Mundial for her contribution to the Israeli society. In 2012 and 2016 she received a prize for best article from the Israeli Political Science Association. In 2015, 2018-2023 she received a prize for excellent researcher from the Western Galilee College. Since 2019 she has served as the vice president of the Israel Political Science Association (ISPSA). And, in 2023 she was elected as the temporary president of the Israel Political Science Association.
| FIRST TERM BOARD MEMBER (2023-2027)Reichman University/University at Albany, SUNY/The Open University of Israel |Read MoreReichman University/University at Albany, SUNY/The Open University of Israel
Dr. Niva Golan-Nadir is a Research Associate at the Center for Policy Research, Rockefeller College of Public Affairs & Policy, The University at Albany, SUNY, and a research fellow at the Institute for Liberty and Responsibility, Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy & Strategy, Reichman University, where she further heads the honors program. Niva also teaches Comparative Politics and methodology courses at Reichman University and the Open University of Israel.
Her main research interests are within the realm of Comparative Politics (with a special interest in Israel and Turkey), state-religion relations, Public Administration, and Israel Studies. Her research focuses on a comparative analysis of enduring gaps between public preferences, the policy as designed, and policy implementation. Her aim is to establish that within public administration, religion may be considered a paradigmatic case study.
Her recent studies were published in peer-reviewed journals: American Review of Public Administration, International Review of Administrative Sciences, Australian Journal of Public Administration, Policy Studies, and Israel Studies Review. Her recent book (based on her 'Israel Institute-funded Ph.D. dissertation) was published in 2022 by Palgrave Macmillan and has been awarded final list and honorary mention (second place) by the Azrieli Institute of Israel Studies and Concordia University Library.
| FIRST TERM BOARD MEMBER (2023-2027)Franklin & Marshall College|Read MoreFranklin & Marshall College
Marco Di Giulio is an associate professor of Hebrew Language and Literature at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, PA. He has written on the vernacularization of Hebrew, especially in nineteenth-century Italian Judaism and the Yishuv. His most recent research interests focus on the history of disability in Israel.
| FIRST TERM BOARD MEMBER (2023-2027)Bar-Ilan University|Read MoreBar-Ilan University
Kimmy Caplan teaches Modern Jewish History in the Koschitzky Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry at Bar-Ilan University. His field of scholarly interest is Jewish Religious History in the 19th and 20th centuries, with a focus on religious streams, popular religion, preaching, and homiletics. His prime focus in recent years is Haredi society in the 20th century.
| FIRST TERM BOARD MEMBER (2023-2027)Emory University|Read MoreEmory University
Eli Sperling served as the Senior Academic Research Coordinator at Emory University’s Institute for the Study of Modern Israel from 2012-2020, and taught as a guest Professor at the Tam Institute for Jewish Studies from 2019–2020. Eli received his PhD from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Fall 2019; and from 2020-2022, he served as a Postdoctoral Associate in Duke University’s Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies. Since Fall 2022, he has served as the Israel Institute Teaching Fellow in the University of Georgia’s Department of International Affairs. Eli is the author of the forthcoming book Singing the Land: Hebrew Music and Early Zionism in America, University of Michigan Press.
| FIRST TERM BOARD MEMBER (2023-2027)Jagiellonian University in Krakow|Read MoreJagiellonian University in Krakow
Poland
Artur Skorek is the Chair of the European Association of Israel Studies, adjunct professor at the Institute of the Middle and Far East, Jagiellonian University in Krakow (JUK), a political scientist specializing in Israel and international relations. He holds Ph.D. in political science and an M.A. in international relations and religion studies from UJ. Artur Skorek’s research focused both on the political system of Israel (especially religion’s influence on politics and law) and its international relations. Recently he has followed the latter research direction, concentrating on Israeli security, especially in its ontological dimension. He is the author of two books on the Israeli political system and over 30 academic papers (selected works: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Artur_Skorek). He was a visiting scholar in City, University of London. Artur Skorek was the Executive Secretary of the European Israel Studies Association 2020-2022, he started his term as the chair of the Association in January 2023. He is also a
member of the Association of Israel Studies, European International Studies Association, and Polish Association for Jewish Studies. Also, his didactic work has revolved around Israel and its role in the Middle East. He has been an academic teacher in several Polish universities, and gave guest lectures in European and Israeli universities. In 2022 he was bestowed a Medal of the Polish Commission of National Education for an outstanding contribution to education.
| FIRST TERM BOARD MEMBER (2023-2027)Department of Sociology, Political Science and Communication
The Open University of Israel
ilanbe@openu.ac.ilDr. Ilan Ben-Ami teaches at the Department of Sociology, Political Science and Communication at the Open University of Israel. He is a graduate of Tel Aviv University [BA in Political Science and Sociology and MA in Sociology], and completed his Ph.D. in Sociology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY, 1994). Dr. Ben Ami's scholarly works center on various aspects of Israeli politics, more specifically in women in politics. His most recent book was published in June 2019 and is titled: Tzipi Livni – Political Biography (Tel-Aviv, Steimatzky Publishing House). His previous book, published in 2010, was titled: Behind The Great Man: The Private and Public Lives of Israel's Prime Ministers' Wives (Tel-Aviv, Matar Publishing House).
SECOND TERM BOARD MEMBERS
| SECOND TERM BOARD MEMBER (2021-2025)Sapir Academic College / Concordia University |Read MoreSapir Academic College/Concordia University
Israel
Dr. Lihi Lahat is an Associate Professor in the Department of Public Administration and Policy at Sapir Academic College and an Affiliated Professor in the Azrieli Institute of Israel Studies at Concordia University, Montreal. Her research areas are policymakers' perceptions of poverty, the regulation of personal social services, smart cities, trust and well-being among public sector employees, uses of time and policy, and collaborative governance.
Dr. Lahat holds a BA in political science, an MA cum laude in public policy, and a PhD in public policy, all from Tel Aviv University. Her doctoral dissertation was on policymakers' perceptions of poverty. Her papers have been published in various journals, including Policy Sciences, Social Policy & Administration, International Review of Administrative Science, Journal of Management & Governance, The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Review of Public Personnel Administration, Journal of European Social Policy, and Poverty & Public Policy. She co-edited (with Dr. Sher-Hadar and Professor Galnoor) the book Collaborative Governance: Theory and Lessons from Israel (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021). In fall 2018, she was a visiting researcher at the Azrieli Institute of Israel Studies at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. She was Israel Institute Visiting Scholar at the Serling Institute for Jewish Studies and Modern Israel at Michigan State University, US, in fall 2019.
| SECOND TERM BOARD MEMBER (2021-2025)College of Charleston |Read MoreCollege of Charleston
USA
Yaron Ayalon is associate professor of Jewish and Middle Eastern studies and Director of the Yaschik/Arnlod Jewish Studies Program at the College of Charleston. Ayalon is a historian of Sephardic Jews in the Ottoman Empire, the Middle East, and Israel, and the author of Natural Disasters in the Ottoman Empire: Plague, Famine, and Other Misfortunes (Cambridge University Press, 2015) and over 20 articles. He has taught courses on the Middle East, Israel, and Jewish history at five institutions. Ayalon earned a BA from Tel Aviv University in 2002, and a PhD from Princeton in 2009.
| SECOND TERM BOARD MEMBER (2021-2025)Zefat Academic College / University of Haifa|Read MoreZefat Academic College / University of Haifa
Israel
Prof. Ofira Gruweis-Kovalsky is Associate Professor at Zefat Academic College and Associate researcher at Herzl Institute University of Haifa, Israel. She received her PhD from University of Haifa, Israel Studies Dep. (2010), Summa cum Laude. Gruweis -Kovalsky continued post-doctoral at Bar-Ilan University Geography Department. (2010-2011). She was a Visiting Scholar (2015), and Associate researcher (2015- 2020) at HBI, Brandeis University, USA.
Prof. Ofira Gruweis-Kovalsky field of interest is the political history of the State of Israel. Her research is interdisciplinary and is developed along two theoretical lines: (1) exploring myths, symbols, and commemoration from a political and national perspective; and (2) exploring the geographical issues and their impact on Israeli politics. Gruweis -Kovalsky primary focus is the history of the Israeli right-wing and its cultivation of Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel.
She was the author of "The Vindicated and the Persecuted" The Mythology and the Symbols of the Herut Movement, Sde Boker, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beersheba. (June 2015), (in Hebrew) and "Hebrew Women don't Lose Your Share"- Secular Right Wing Zionist Women in the Transition to Statehood. Bar-Ilan University Press (2024) (in Hebrew) The editor of anthologies. The editor of the academic journal 'Artzot Hagalil', Zefat Academic College (in Hebrew) and the author of a selection of articles in Hebrew and English. Example of articles:
1. The Ghost of the Altalena Seventy-Fife Years On, Israel Affairs, 29(3), (2023). 587- 601.
2. ‘Jerusalem 1948 -1952 as a “No Man’s Land”: Israeli Policy in Jerusalem as an Arena of the Cold War’, Middle Eastern Studies, 58(1), (2022).103 -119.
| SECOND TERM BOARD MEMBER (2021-2025)Tel Aviv University|Read MoreTel Aviv University
Israel
Nechumi Yaffe is a faculty member in the Department of Public Policy at Tel Aviv University. She completed her postdoctoral research at Princeton University affiliated with the Daniel Kahneman Center of Behavioral Science and Public Policy, and the University Center for Human Values. Nechumi’s research examines, from a social psychology perspective, how identity, social norms, and authority play a role in creating and preserving poverty. Her work focuses on the ultra-orthodox (Haredi) community in Israel and USA. Before entering to doctoral program, she was an advisor for the Haredi educational system and she wrote the new curriculum and textbook in history, now used by all Haredi high schools in Israel. Nechumi earned a Ph.D. in political science from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, under the supervision by Avner de-Shalit, Eran Halperin, and Tamar Saguy. She has an impressive publication record in academic peer-reviewed journals and policy papers. In her vision, research and practice are intertwined and her academic work is driven from and gear towards improving, reaching out, and helping the community.
| SECOND TERM BOARD MEMBER (2021-2025)Bar-Ilan University |Read MoreBar-Ilan University
Israel
Prof. Kobi Cohen-Hattab is an Associate Professor at the Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology, Bar Ilan University, Israel. His main research interests are historical-geography of tourism, tourism in historical towns, the development of Holy Sites and the relationships between Zionism and the Sea. His books include: Tour the Land - Tourism in Palestine during the British Mandate Period (1917-1948), Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi: Jerusalem, 2006 (Hebrew); 2. Tourism, Religion and Pilgrimage in Jerusalem, Routledge: U.K, 2015 (coauthor book with Prof. Noam Shoval); The Maritime Revolution: The Yishuv’s Hold on the Sea and Shores of the Land of Israel, (1917-1948), Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi: Jerusalem, 2019 (Hebrew); Zionism’s Maritime Revolution: The Yishuv’s Hold on the Land of Israel’s Sea and Shores, 1917–1948, De Gruyter: Leiden, 2019; The Western Wall: The Dispute over Israel's Holiest Jewish Site, 1967–2000, Brill: Leiden, 2020 (coauthor book with Prof. Doron Bar).
| SECOND TERM BOARD MEMBER (2021-2025)Jagiellonian University|Read MoreJagiellonian University / European Association of Israel Studies
Poland
Joanna Dyduch is a Political Scientist and International Relations scholar based at the Department of Israel and Levant at Institute of Middle and Far East of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. Her research interests lie in the area of Israel and European Studies. Joanna is the author of several books and articles. She has been a Visiting Lecturer, including at the University of Vienna (2017), Matej Bel University in Banska Bystrica (2019) and University of Potsdam (2020).Currently, she is the Dean's representative at the Institute of the Middle and Far East for research and international cooperation and deputy Director of the Institute. Since 2019 she has served as the President of the European Association for Israeli Studies.
| SECOND TERM BOARD MEMBER (2021-2025)Bar-Ilan University|Read MoreBar-Ilan University
Israel
Dr. Elisheva Rosman-Stollman is a senior lecturer at the Department of Political Studies at Bar-Ilan University. Her research and publications focus on civil-military relations, particularly the relationship between the military and religious soldiers, and religious women in the military. She is a founding member of the Association for Civil-Military Studies in Israel. Her recent research projects focus on religious feminism, civilian medicine and the military, and the evolving conscription model in Israel. She is also the Director of the Argov Center for the study of Israel and the Jewish People.
Education
B.A Middle Eastern Studies and Political Science, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
M.A. Political Studies, Bar Ilan University
PhD. Political Studies, Bar Ilan University
| SECOND TERM BOARD MEMBER (2021-2025)Ben-Gurion University of the Negev |herzogb@bgu.ac.il |Read MoreBen-Gurion University of the Negev
Dr. Ben Herzog, the Michael Feige Career Development Chair in Israeli Society, is a Senior Lecturer (equivalent to associate professor in the US) at the Ben-Gurion Research Institute, at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Dr. Herzog is the head of the Woodman-Scheller Israel Studies International Program (WSISIP).
Dr. Herzog held few visiting positions in Yale University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University and Quinnipiac University. His articles on refugees and citizenship have been published in Nations and Nationalism, Israel Studies Forum, Research in Political Sociology, European Journal of Sociology, Eastern European Politics and Society, Citizenship Studies, Journal of Immigration Asylum and Nationality Law, and in the American Review of Canadian Studies. His book Revoking Citizenship: Expatriation in America from the Colonial Era to the War on Terror was published by NYU Press.
AIS EXECUTIVES
| PRESIDENTHull University|R.Cohen-Almagor@hull.ac.uk |Read MoreChair in Politics, and Director of the Middle East Study Group (MESG)
Hull University, CANADA
R.Cohen-Almagor@hull.ac.ukRaphael Cohen-Almagor completed his DPhil in Political Theory at University of Oxford. He taught, inter alia, at Oxford and Hull in the United Kingdom, Jerusalem and Haifa in Israel, UCLA and Johns Hopkins in the United States, and Nirma University in India. He was twice a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington D.C., and Distinguished Visiting Professor, Faculty of Laws, University College London. In 2023, Raphael was The Olof Palme Visiting Professor, Lund University, Sweden.
| VICE PRESIDENTConcordia University|Read MoreConcordia University
Canada
Csaba Nikolenyi is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Azrieli Institute of Israel Studies at Concordia University (Montreal, Canada). Previously he served as English Co-Editor of the Canadian Journal of Political Science (2006-11), Chair of the Department of Political Science (2011-14), and Chair of the International Postdoctoral Fellowship Selection Committee
of the Azrieli Foundation. He held Visiting Professor appointments at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2007-8, 2015-6), Science PO Grenoble (2015), the Centre for European Studies at the Australian National University (2012), O.P. Jindal Open Global University in India (2016), and the Martin-Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg (2020). Nikolenyi’s research has been
supported by several grants awarded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. He has published three books and several scholarly articles in comparative politics and area journals including Party Politics, Israel Studies, West European Politics. His recent book on Party Switching in Israel is published by the State University of New York Press. Currently, he is
completing a monograph on the political history of the Israeli presidency.
| EXECUTIVE DIRECTORUniversity of Haifa, ISRAEL |ashamis@staff.haifa.ac.il |Read MoreDepartment of Israel Studies
University of Haifa, ISRAEL
ashamis@staff.haifa.ac.ilDr. Asaf J. Shamis is an assistant Professor of Political Theory in the Israel Studies Department at the University of Haifa. Dr. Shamis is a graduate of the Hebrew University [BA in Political Science and International Relations (Magna cum Laude) and MA in Political Science (Magna cum Laude)]. He completed his Ph.D. in Political Science at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). From 2014 to 2016 he served as a post-doctoral fellow at Columbia University. Over the years, Dr. Shamis has taught a wide variety of courses both in the US and in Israel on Israeli politics, political theory, the politics of technology and the history of Zionism. Dr. Shamis’ scholarly works center on the historical and conceptual intersections between ideology and technology. He is currently working on an extensive project in which he aims to provide a first comprehensive account of the place of technology in early Zionist thought. The study explores the role early Zionist thinkers assigned tools, devices and machines in their vision of a Jewish homeland.
ISRAEL STUDIES REVIEW
| BOOK REVIEW EDITOR, ISRAEL STUDIES REVIEWThe University of Kansas |Read MoreBook Review Editor
The University of KansasUSA
Dr. Rami Zeedan is a political scientist and historian who specializes in modern Israel, particularly the Arab-Palestinian minority within the nation-state. He has published several academic articles and books on elections, local governments, public opinion and the history of Arab-Palestinians in Israeli politics, the government and the military. Dr. Zeedan has held visiting positions at various universities and is an associate professor at the University of Kansas.
| EDITOR, ISRAEL STUDIES REVIEWQueen's University |Read MoreCo-Editor, Israel Studies Review
Queen's University
Ex Officio (Book Review Editor, Israel Studies Review)Canada
Oded Haklai is a Professor in the Department of Political Studies at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario. He teaches and researches nationalism and ethnic conflict, Israeli-Palestinian relations, state-minority relations, and the politics of settlers and territorial disputes. Haklai is the author of Palestinian Ethnonationalism in Israel, recipient of the Shapiro Award as well as numerous journal articles. He is also co-editor of Settlers in Contested Lands: Territorial Dipsutes and Ethnic Conflict. Haklai has held several visiting fellowships and scholarships, including at the Truman Research Institute, Moshe Dayan Center, and the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies at George Washington University.
| EDITOR, ISRAEL STUDIES REVIEWThe Open University of Israel |Read MoreCo-Editor, Israel Studies Review
The Open University of IsraelIsrael
Adia Mendelson-Maoz is an associate professor in Israeli literature and culture in the Department of Literature, Language and Arts at the Open University of Israel. She investigates the multifaceted relationships between literature, ethics, politics, and culture, mainly in the context of Hebrew Literature and Israeli culture. Her recent books include Multiculturalism in Israel - Literary Perspectives (Purdue UP, 2014); Borders, Territories, and Ethics: Hebrew Literature in the Shadow of the Intifada, (Purdue UP, 2018); and her Hebrew book Territories and Borders in the Shadow of the Intifada: Ethical Reading of Hebrew Literature 1987-2007 (Magnes Press 2021). Mendelson-Maoz discovered Yoram Kaniuk's unpublished manuscript Sabon (Soap, 2018) and served as a scientific editor for its publication. Currently she writes a manuscript that aims to present a comprehensive picture of Kaniuk's literary endeavor, based on his personal archive. Her new research project, with Avi Shmidman, Bar Ilan University, applies methods from Digital Humanities to the study of Hebrew Literature historiography. The project "Computational Stylistic Profiles for the Analysis of Modern Hebrew Prose" won the Israel Ministry of Science grant for Digital Humanities in 2020.
WOMEN’S CAUCUS
The Women’s Caucus serves as a forum for discussing the challenges and opportunities facing women in our field, promoting gender equality, and fostering a supportive community. It takes place during the annual meeting, and further details will be provided as we approach the conference date.
| Women's Caucus ChairMoria Ran received her PhD from Bar Ilan University in The Land of Israel and Archaeology. Her dissertation was titled “The Individual, the Feminine and the Public: The Portrait of Professor Alice Shalvi and Her Enterprises as a Reflection of the Development of Women’s Status in Israeli Society.” She also studied at Bar Ilan’s seminary for women, The Midrasha for Women and at Midrashet Lindenbaum, focusing on Talmud. She teaches academic writing at the Open University of Israel. She was at the Hadassah Brandeis Institute as a scholar in residence for the 2019-2020 academic year, working on research that examined the journey in Orthodox feminism in Israel and the United States, looking at both Kolech and JOFA.
ACADEMIC FREEDOM COMMITTEE
The AFC addresses issues involving infringements on the academic activities of AIS members, as well as policies and actions that threaten fundamental principles of academic freedom. This includes matters affecting the field of Israel Studies, particularly the freedom of students and scholars to engage, study, and conduct research in or about Israel.
The committee is chaired by Aviva Halamish. Members include Asa Kasher, Rachel Harris, Menachem Hofnung, Lihi Lahat, Nohad Ali and Phillip Hollander.
- | FIRST TERM BOARD MEMBER (2023-2027)The Open University of Israel|Read More
The Open University of Israel
Professor (emerita) Aviva Halamish is a historian at the Open University of Israel. Her research encompasses the history of the Jewish people and of Palestine in the twentieth century, focusing on the history of Zionism; Jewish immigration in the twentieth century including illegal Jewish immigration to Mandatory Palestine; history of the Yishuv and of the state of Israel; the kibbutz; and historical biography. She authored or edited over a dozen books and published scores of articles on various aspects of her fields of expertise. Among her books The Exodus Affair: Holocaust Survivors and the Struggle for Palestine (1998) and Kibbutz: Utopia and Politics / The Life and Times of Meir Yaari, (2017). Served as Vice President (2007-2009) and President (2009-2011) of the AIS and on various Nominations and Ad-hoc committees of the Association. Member, in the past and present, of Editorial Boards including The Journal of Israeli, Cathedra for the History of Eretz Israel and its Yishuv, Iyunim bi-Tkumat Israel, Moreshet: Journal for the Study of the Holocaust and Antisemitism; Yad Yitzhak Ben Zvi Press, The Ben-Gurion Research Institute Press. Founder and first Director and Editor-in-Chief, The Open University Press Member of Israel Council for Higher Education (2016-2022).
- | SECOND TERM BOARD MEMBER (2021-2025)Sapir Academic College / Concordia University |Read More
Sapir Academic College/Concordia University
Dr. Lihi Lahat is an Associate Professor in the Department of Public Administration and Policy at Sapir Academic College and an Affiliated Professor in the Azrieli Institute of Israel Studies at Concordia University, Montreal. Her research areas are policymakers' perceptions of poverty, the regulation of personal social services, smart cities, trust and well-being among public sector employees, uses of time and policy, and collaborative governance.
Dr. Lahat holds a BA in political science, an MA cum laude in public policy, and a PhD in public policy, all from Tel Aviv University. Her doctoral dissertation was on policymakers' perceptions of poverty. Her papers have been published in various journals, including Policy Sciences, Social Policy & Administration, International Review of Administrative Science, Journal of Management & Governance, The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Review of Public Personnel Administration, Journal of European Social Policy, and Poverty & Public Policy. She co-edited (with Dr. Sher-Hadar and Professor Galnoor) the book Collaborative Governance: Theory and Lessons from Israel (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021). In fall 2018, she was a visiting researcher at the Azrieli Institute of Israel Studies at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. She was Israel Institute Visiting Scholar at the Serling Institute for Jewish Studies and Modern Israel at Michigan State University, US, in fall 2019.
| ACADEMIC FREEDOM COMMITTEECornell University |Read MoreCornell University
Philip Hollander received a PhD in Modern Hebrew literature from Columbia University and has taught at Tulane University, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Cornell University, and Princeton University. He authored From Schlemiel to Sabra: Zionist Masculinity and Palestinian Hebrew Literature (Indiana University Press, 2019) and is currently working on a book-length study of the American-Israeli Hebrew poet and scholar T. Carmi (Carmi Charny). He previously served on the executive committee of the Modern Language Association Languages, Literatures and Cultures Hebrew section, which he also chaired. As a member of the Association for Israel Studies, he has served on the selection committee for the Shapiro Award for Best Book in Israel Studies and the program committee for the annual conference.
| ACADEMIC FREEDOM COMMITTEEFlorida Atlantic University |Read MoreFlorida Atlantic University
Rachel S. Harris occupies the Gimelstob Eminent Scholar Chair for Judaic Studies, and is a Professor of Film and Multimedia Studies at Florida Atlantic University where she also directs the Program in Jewish Studies. Prior to this, she was an Associate Professor of Comparative and World Literature and The Program in Jewish Culture & Society at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (2009-2022). She was also was the Shoshana Shrier Distinguished Visiting Professor at Toronto University. She is active in the Association for Jewish Studies where she served as the chair of the Women's Caucus (2017-2019) and the Association for Israel Studies where she served two terms on the board (2015-2019) and Chaired the 37th Association for Israel Studies Annual Conference "Pluralistic Israel: Women, Minorities and Diversity" in 2021. She has served on the committee for the Yonathan Shapiro Award for Best Book in Israel Studies (2019-2022) and as its chair (2021-2022).
Harris is the author of Warriors, Witches, Whores: Women in Israeli Cinema (2017) and An Ideological Death: Suicide in Israeli Literature (2014). She is the co-editor of Casting a Giant Shadow: The Transnational Shaping of Israeli Cinema (2021) with Dan Chyutin which won The Janovics Center Best Book Award for Outstanding Humanities Research in Transnational Film and Theatre Studies, 2021. She edited Teaching the Arab-Israeli Conflict (2019), and with Ranen Omer-Sherman she edited Narratives of Dissent: War in Contemporary Israeli Arts and Culture (2012). She is the editor in chief of the Journal of Jewish Identities.
| ACADEMIC FREEDOM COMMITTEETel Aviv University |Read MoreTel Aviv University
Asa Kasher is Professor Emeritus of Professional Ethics and Philosophy of Practice, Tel Aviv University and Senior Research Guest, INSS, participating in the Military-Society Research Program activities.
Prof. Kasher has done research in the areas of Professional Ethics, Organizational Ethics and the Moral Foundations of Democracy. Within the framework of these areas he wrote the books "Israeli Ethics" and "More on Israeli Ethics" (Keter) as well as "Military Ethics" (Modan and Ministry of Defense) which won the Izhak Sade Prize of Military Literature, and "Spirit of a Man" (Am Oved). Published 450 papers and ethical documents in these and other areas, for all of which he won the Israel Prize for Philosophy (2000).
Prof. Kasher wrote or participated in writing numerous codes of ethics of State, Public, Professional and Business organizations, including the IDF Code of Ethics (1994) and the codes of ethics of the Ministry of Defense and Israel Police.
He was a member of many Governmental Public committees, chaired by justices Shamgar (2), Zamir, Procacia, Matsa, Arbel and Winograd, and Generals Hoffi, Dagan, Shavit, Shani and Yaron.
|The Hebrew University of Jerusalem|Read MoreMenachem Hofnung is a member of the Department of Political Science of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Professor Hofnung was a President of the Israeli Law and Society Association (2007-2010), Chair of the International Political Science Association Research Committee on Political Finance (2006-2009), President of the Association for Israel Studies (AIS) (2013-2015) and Chair of the Department of Political Science of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2015-17. Menachem Hofnung served as member of the National Commission on Campaign Finance Reform (Levin Commission, 2000(, and was a member of the National Commission on the Structure of Governmental Administration in Israel (Magidor Commission, 2006). Hofnung's research covers national security and civil liberties, constitutional politics and comparative political finance.
Professor Hofnung has served in the Israeli Defense forces as a combat officer and retired from reserve duty at the rank of Major.
During his career Professor Hofnung taught at the University of California campuses of Berkeley, UCLA and Irvine, San Francisco State University, the University of Florida at Gainesville, Moscow State University, Jindal Global University (India), Sofia University, Torquato Di Tella University (Argentina), Collegium Civitas University (Poland) and was a Research Fellow at the Center for Law and Society at the University of California at Berkeley and Sydney University, Australia.
Menachem Hofnung is one of the editors of Oxford Handbook of Israeli Politics and Society. New York: Oxford University Press (2021) by Hazan R., Dowty H., Hofnung M., Rahat G.
| SECOND TERM BOARD MEMBER (2019-2023)Western Galilee College |Read MoreWestern Galilee College
Israel
Nohad 'Ali Ph.D., earned his doctoral degree in Sociology from the university of Haifa. He is a senior lecturer and researcher at the Department of Sociology at Western Galilee College. He currently heads the “Arabs-Jews-State” unit and the cluster for societal equality at Samuel Neaman Institute, Technion.
His research areas include religious fundamentalism (Islamic and Jewish in Israel); majority-minority relations; Arab Palestinian women in Israel; bilingual Arabic-Hebrew education in elementary schools, higher education Among Arab community and violence & crime among the Arab Community in Israel. He has published extensively about these topics in leading refereed journals.
Dr. Áli has published numerous books and research reports:
Living together on multicultural campus: Student’s Perspectives in Israeli Higher Education Institutions. Research Report. Haifa: Samuel Neaman Institute for National Policy. (2024)
Violence, Crime, and Policing in Arab Society in The Age of Covid. (Haifa and Lud: Samuel Neaman Institute for National Policy (with Najami-Yousef, O. and Yonatan A). (2022)
Personal Security Survey in the Mixed Cities 2020. (Haifa and Lud: Samuel Neaman Institute for National Policy (with Lewin-Chen, R. and Najami-Yousef, O.). (2021)
Violence, Crime and Policing in Arab Society: Personal and Community Security Index-2019. (Haifa and Lud: Samuel Neaman Institute for National Policy Research and Abraham Initiatives. (With Lewin-Chen, R. and Najami-Yousef, O). [Hebrew and Arabic]. (2020)
Violence, Crime and Policing in Arab Towns. (Haifa and Lud: Samuel Neaman Institute for National Policy Research and Abraham Initiatives. (With Lewin-Chen, R). [Hebrew and Arabic]. (2019)
Islam in Israel: Muslim Communities in Non-Muslim States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (With Dr. Al-Atawneh, M.). [English]. (2018)
Higher Education among the Arab Minority in Israel: Representation, Mapping, Barriers and Challenges. (With Dr. Da’as, R. (Tel Aviv: Resling). (2018)
Social Resilience for the Arab Community: Reinforcement, Acculturation and Models for Operation. Research Report. Submitted to Rahel, The Ministry of Defense and the Ministry for Social Equality. [Hebrew]. (2018)
Violence and crime in Arab society in Israel: Institutional conspiracy or cultural crime. Haifa: The Jewish-Arab Center: University of Haifa. [Hebrew]. (2015)
"Between Ovadia and Abdallah: Jewish and Islamic Fundamentalism in Israel", Resling press (2013)
STAFF
| Financial ManagerAssociation for Israel Studies|Read MoreDepartment of Israel Studies
FINANCIAL MANAGER
| AIS Conference Coordinator and Website ManagerAssociation for Israel Studies|anina@aisisraelstudies.org |Read MoreCONFERENCE COORDINATOR AND WEBSITE MANAGER
Association for Israel Studies
anina@aisisraelstudies.org
| Assistant to Executive DirectorUniversity of Haifa, ISRAEL|ais@aisisraelstudies.org |Read MoreDepartment of Israel Studies
University of Haifa, ISRAEL
scolley@campus.haifa.ac.il
- Arieh Saposnik | Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (2021-2023)
- Yael Aronoff | Michigan State University (2019-2021)
- Donna Robinson Divine | Smith College (2017-2019)
- Ilan Troen | Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Brandeis University (2015-2017)
- Menachem Hofnung | The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2013-2015)
- Gad Barzilai | University of Washington and University of Haifa (2011-2013)
- Aviva Halamish | The Open University of Israel (2009-2011)
- Rachel Brenner | University of Wisconsin-Madison (2007-2009)
- Alan Dowty | University of Notre Dame (2005-2007)
- Joel Migdal | University of Washington (2003-2005)
- Gershon Shafir | University of California, San Diego (2001- 2003)
- Hanna Herzog | Tel-Aviv University (1999-2001)
- Pnina Lahav | Boston University (1997-1999)
- Ilan Peleg | Lafayette College (1995-1997)
- Ian Lustick | University of Pennsylvania (1993-1995)
- Gregory Mahler | University of Mississippi (1991-1993)
- Mark Tessler | University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (1989-1991)
- Robert Freedman | Baltimore Hebrew University (1987-1989)
- Myron Aronoff | Rutgers University (1985-1987)