The Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation Israel Studies Colloquium is a vital forum for the Institute to cultivate a multidisciplinary academic community of scholars in Israel Studies. Faculty and graduate students gather monthly to present and discuss topics in Israel Studies and share resources for expanding the scope of research and teaching.
We are grateful to The Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation for a generous gift that has made this colloquium possible.
Upcoming Colloquia
The Assault on Freedom of Communication in Israel following the October 7 Massacre and the Israel-Hamas War
Monday, December 2, 12:30–1 pm PT, 297 Goldberg Room, Berkeley Law Building
Amit Schejter, HDI Visiting Scholar and Professor of Communication Studies at Ben-Gurion University, will examine the two dramatic events that took place in Israel during 2023: a government attempt to change the constitutional order and a brutal terror attack that led to an elongated armed conflict with Hamas, the organization controlling the neighboring Gaza Strip. Both events opened the floodgates to a barrage of legislative and administrative proposals by members of Israel’s ruling coalition, seeking to concentrate power with the executive and limit human rights. Professor Schejter’s study describes the proposals that emerged since the beginning of the war, sets them in the framework of a democracy in transition to autocratic rule, and examines them in the context of utilizing a military crisis to limit fundamental liberties.
Amit Schejter, 2024–2025 Israel Institute Visiting Professor at the Helen Diller Institute; Professor of Communication Studies at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
This event is open to UC Berkeley students, faculty, and staff. A kosher lunch will be provided for all registrants beginning at noon.
Past Colloquia
2024–2025
Trust and Co-Production: Local Leaders' Experiences from an Extreme Military Crisis
Lihi Lahat, Fall 2024 Helen Diller Institute Visiting Scholar; Associate Professor of Public Administration and Policy at Sapir Academic College; Affiliate Associate Professor of Azrieli Institute of Israel Studies at Concordia University
2023–2024
Ultra-Orthodox Death Rituals at Sites of Terrorism
Gideon Aran, Professor Emeritus of Sociology & Anthropology, Hebrew University
The Impact of the 1991 Gulf War on the Nuclear Dimension of US-Israel Relations
Ori Rabinowitz, Visiting Scholar, Freeman Spogli Institute, Stanford University
The Strength of Democratic Institutions and Economic Performance — Implications for Israel
Shirlee Lichtman Sadot, Israel Institute Visiting Professor (2023–2024); Senior Lecturer, Economics Department, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
War and Reproduction: Posthumous Reproduction in Israel as a Case Study
Nofar Yakov Gan-Or, Visiting Scholar, Helen Diller Institute; Postdoctoral Fellow, Aharon Barak Center for Interdisciplinary Legal Research, Hebrew University Faculty of Law
2022–2023
Guiding Christian Pilgrims as Jewish-Israeli Identity Praxis
Jackie Feldman, Professor, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev; Fall 2022 Israel Institute Visiting Professor at UC Berkeley
From Siso to Salah: The Mizrahi Critique of Law & Society
Yifat Bitton, President of Achva Academic College of Education and Science; Fall 2022 Visiting Professor at University of Chicago
Israel-Latin American Relations: What Has Changed in the Past Decade and Why?
Arie M. Kacowicz, Chaim Weizmann Chair in International Relations, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Aaron and Cecile Goldman Visiting Israeli Professor, Georgetown University
2021–2022
Human Dignity as a Chameleon
Monday, Oct 18, 2021, 12:30 - 2:00 PM, Warren Room
Michal Tamir, 2021-2022 Israel Institute Visiting Professor in Israel Studies; Associate Professor, The Academic Center of Law and Science, Israel
Correct Me If I Am Wrong: Institutional Hebrew vs. Native Hebrew in Israel
Monday, November 8, 12:30 – 2:00 PM, Berkeley Law, 297 Goldberg RoomUri Mor, 2021–2022 Helen Diller Institute Visiting Professor; former Head, Departmen of Hebrew Language, Ben-Gurion University of
the Negev
Israeli Community Action: Living Through the War of Independence
Monday, March 14, 2022, 12:30 – 2:00 PM, Berkeley Law, 297 Goldberg Room
Paula Kabablo, Spring 2022 Helen Diller Institute Visiting Professor; Professor of History, Head of the Azrieli Center for Israel Studies, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Religious Discrimination, Diaspora, and the United Nations Voting on Israel
Monday, February 14, 2022, 12:30 – 2:00PM, Berkeley Law, 295 Warren Room
Jonathan Fox, Yehuda Avner Professor of Religion and Politics at Bar-Ilan University, the Director of the Religion and State (RAS) Project, and a Senior Research Fellow at Bar-Ilan’s Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies
2020–2021
The Yemenite Children Affair: History, Access to Information, and Public Discourse
Roy Peled, Koret Visiting Professor in Israel Studies, UC Berkeley; Dov Levitan, Head of the Interdisciplinary Studies Program, Ashkelon College. Recording here.
How Space is Culturally Transformed: Religious and Aesthetic Creativity on the Israeli-Palestinian Border
Elisa Farinacci, Post Doctoral Fellow, University of Bologna
Let the Creators Sing: Informing Democracy Indices with Israeli Creators’ Voices
Daniella Wegner, Former Fulbright Scholar, Hebrew University and Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design; UC Berkeley Alumna. Recording here.
Lessons Learned from Football Players and Epilepsy to Understand Brain Aging
Daniela Kaufer, Professor of Integrative Biology and Neuroscience and the Associate Dean of Biological Sciences at UC Berkeley. Recording here.
Israeli Women in Combat
Ayelet Harel-Shalev, Associate Professor, The Conflict Management and Resolution Program. Recording here(link is external).
Gil-li Vardi, Lecturer in History, Stanford University
2019–2020
Hadassah Women Build a ‘Modern Hospital’ — The Hadassah Medical Center on Mount Scopus
Stephanie Rotem, Berkeley Institute Visiting Professor; Tel Aviv University
The Growth of Religious Nationalism in Israeli Society
Alain Dieckhoff, Professor, Science Po
Special Joint Session with the Center for Democracy, Toleration, and Religion and the Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion
Israel as the State of Redemption: Political, Theological, and Cultural Implications
Eva Gurevich, PhD Candidate, Brandeis University
The Methodology of Immigration Law: The Case of Israel
Tally Kritzman-Amir, Visiting Professor, Harvard University
Israel-Gulf Relations: From Enemies to Allies of Convenience
Joshua Teitelbaum, Professor, Bar-Ilan University
Israeli Memorial Landscape: Competing Approaches to Remembrance and Forgetting
Yael Zerubavel, Professor Emeritus, Rutgers University
Antisemitism, Anti-Zionism and Criticism of Israel: Where to Draw the Line?
Dov Waxman, Gilbert Chair in Israel Studies, Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies, UCLA
2018–2019
The Role of the Supreme Court in Israel’s Democracy
Asher Grunis, Former President of the Supreme Court of Israel
S.Y. Agnon: A Nobel Laureate Between Traditionalism, Modernism, and Surrealism
R. Jeffrey Saks, Rabbi, Author
Israeli Media and Politics
Anat Balint, Israel Institute Visiting Professor, San Francisco State University
The Role of Rhetoric, Discourse and Language in Marketing Contested Infrastructure: The Case of Israel
Itay Fischhendler, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Temple Mount: Sanctity, Nationalism and the End Point of Zionism
Tomer Persico, Koret-Hartman Visiting Professor of Jewish Thought
The Israel Museum: Between Zionism and Civic Nationalism
Hilda Nissim, Chair of History, Tel Aviv University
Economic Policy in Israel after the 2011 Social Protests: A Turning Point or Just a Blip?
Itai Ater, Israel Institute Visiting Professor, UC Berkeley; Tel Aviv University
Real Time: Hip-Hop in Israel
Uri Dorchin, Israel Institute Visiting Professor, UCLA; Zefat Academic College
2017–2018
Contemporary Left Antisemitism
David Hirsh, Professor of Sociology Goldsmiths, University of London
Arabs in the Three Branches of Power of the Israeli Political System — Politics, Identity, and Leadership
Rami Zeedan, Political Scientist, Open University of Israel
Israeli Democracy in Crisis? Between Governability and Governance
Gayil Talshir, San Jose State University, Department of Political Science, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem; 2017–2018 Israel Institute Visiting Professor
Legal-Net: The Use and Misuse of Technology in the Regulation of Judges in Israel
Amnon Reichman, 2017–2018 Robbins Collection Visiting Professor in Comparative Law, Associate Professor of Law, Faculty of Law, University of Haifa
Israel, Palestine, and the World’s Most Intractable Conflict
Gershon Shafir, Distinguished Professor, Department of Sociology, University of California, San Diego
The Israeli Transnational Surrogacy Story — Some Empirical and Normative Reflections
Ruth Zafran, Associate Professor, IDC, Herzliya, Radzyner Law School; 2017-2018 Berkeley Institute Visiting Scholar
Black Musics, Blackness, and the Israeli Imagination
Sarah Hankins, Professor of Sound Studies, UC San Diego
PTSD and the Politics of Trauma in Israel
Keren Friedman-Peleg, Medical Anthropologist, The College of Management, Academic Studies
2016–2017
Sociology in the Garden: Beyond the Liberal Grammar of Contemporary Sociology
Nissim Mizrahi, Tel Aviv University (Anthropology and Sociology)
Who Came and Who Stayed Home? Israel’s Massive Street Protests of 2011
Michael Shalev, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Political Science, Sociology and Anthropology)
State Responsibility and the Policy of Privatization in Israel
Itzhak Galnoor, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Political Science)
Oriental Neighbors: Middle Eastern Jews and Arabs in Mandatory Palestine
Moshe Naor, University of Haifa (Israel Studies)
Grammatical Gender: Does Hebrew Language Fail Women in Math?
Tamar Kricheli-Katz, Tel Aviv University (Law and Sociology) and Tali Regev, Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya (School of Economics)
Salvage or Restitution? The Removal of Jewish Cultural Property to Israel After the Holocaust
Shir Kochavi, Cultural Arts Director, Addison Penzak JCC
Musical and Other Cultural Cosmopolitanism in Israel
Motti Regev, The Open University of Israel (Sociology)
Israel in Africa: Medical Diplomacy and Global Health, 1959–1973
Anat Moorvile, Israel Post-Doctoral Fellow at University of California, Davis (Jewish Studies)
2015–2016
Limbotopia and the Changing Concept of Time in Hebrew Literature after Oslo
Vered Shemtov, Stanford University (Hebrew and Comparative Literature)
Elana Gomel, Tel Aviv University (English and American Studies)
How Come Israel Still Has a Constitution? On the Status Quo as Countermajoritarian Difficulty
Ori Aronson, Israel Institute Visiting Professor; The Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation Visiting Professor of Israeli Law and Society, Bar Ilan University (Faculty of Law)
The Boundaries of Israel Studies
Itamar Rabinovich, Tel Aviv University (Middle Eastern History), Former Israeli Ambasador to the United States, President of the Israel Institute
The Dream of the Seventh Dominion: British Liberal Imperialism and the Palestine Question
Arie Dubnov, University of Haifa (History)
Israeli Society in the 21st Century: A Social Demographer’s Perspective
Calvin Goldscheider, Brown University (Sociology and Judaic Studies)
Performance, Disability, and Zionism in the work of Tamar Borer
Ilana Szobel, Brandeis University (Hebrew Literature)
The PLO Research Center: Israel Studies in the Arab World
Jonathan Gribetz, Princeton University (Near Eastern Studies and Judaic Studies)
Environmental Regulation of Israeli Offshore Oil and Gas
Tamara Lotner-Lev, University of Haifa (History)
2014–2015
Anti-Trafficking in Israel: Nationalism, Borders, and Markets
Hila Shamir, Associate Profesor at the Buchman Faculty of Law, Tel Aviv University; Visiting Scholar, Berkeley Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies
The Revolution of the Third Generation: Redefining Israeli Identity through Traditional Music and Song
Francesco Spagnolo, Curator of The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life and a Lecturer in the Department of Music, and Yair Harel, Founder and Director of Invitation to Piyut and a leading figure in the piyut revival movement in Israel
Should Israel Entrench its Constitutional Identity?
Ruth Gavison, Professor of Law, Hebrew University in Jerusalem; One of the founders and former President of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel
How Serious Is the Threat of Dual Authority in the Israel Defense Forces?
Stuart Cohen, Professor of Political Studies, Bar-Ilan University
Was the Ottoman Institution of Petitioning the Sultan Obsolete by the End of the 19th Century?: The Case of the District of Jerusalem
Yuval Ben-Bassat, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Middle Eastern History, University of Haifa; 2014–2015 Abramson-Israel Institute Visiting Professor, UC Berkeley
On "Sheep Gone Astray": A Muslim Headscarf in a Nazareth Catholic School and a Sephardi Student in an Ashkenazi Ultra-Orthodox School
Michael Karayanni, The Bruce W. Wayne Chair in International Law, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
In the Name of Energy Security: The Struggle Over the Exportation of Israeli Natural Gas
Itay Fischhendler, Associate Professor at the Geography Department, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem; 2014-2015 Visiting Professor, UC Berkeley
Men, Money, and Materiel: How Israel Won the 1948 War
Derek Penslar, Samuel Zacks Professor of Jewish History, University of Toronto; Stanley Lewis Professor of Israel Studies, Oxford University
2013–2014
The Mystery of the Kibbutz: How Socialism Suceeeded
Ran Abramitzky, Professor of Economics, Stanford University
Social Protest and the Social Networks: Israel’s Civic Discourse On-and Off-Line
Fania Oz-Salzberger, Professor of History, University of Haifa School of Law
Performing the Bible on the Israeli Stage
Sharon Aronson-Lehavi, Lisa and Douglas Goldman Visiting Israeli Professor
Abandoning Religion for a Revolver: Israeli Soldiers Writing on the "Jewish Nature" in the 1948 War
Shay Hazkani, PhD Candidate, Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies and Department of History, New York University
Under Quarantine at Israel’s Ellis Island: Shaar Ha’aliya, 1949–1952
Rhona Seidelman, Visiting Professor, University of Illinois (Urbana–Champaign)
Constitutional Challenges of Community and Localism in Israel
Amnon Lehavi, Atara Kaufman Professor, Faculty of Law, IDC, Gilbert Foundation Visiting Professor, Berkeley Law
Langer’s Brand of "Zionist" Homosexuality: Implications for Thought and Society in the Yishuv
Shaun Halper, Ph.D. UC Berkeley Department of History
Babel in Zion: A New Look at Language Diversity in the Jewish Community of Mandate Palestine
Liora Halperin, Assisstant Professor of History, University of Colorado
2012–2013
Rewriting the Book of Job in the Poetry of Natan Zach
Prof. Robert Alter, Class of 1937 Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature
Rejecting the "Religious vs. Secular" Binary: Masortim in Jewish-Israeli Politics
Prof. Yaacov Yadgar, Lisa and Douglas Goldman Fund Visiting Israeli Professor
Green Settlment — the Politics of Israeli Environmentalism Past and Future
Miri Lavi-Neeman, PhD Candidate, UC Berkeley Department of Geography
Sisters: The American–Israeli Dialogue on the Meaning of Feminism
Prof. Pnina Lahav, Law Alumni Scholar Professor of Law, Boston University
Israel Following the 2013 Elections: A New Chapter or More of the Same?
Professor Yoram Peri, Abraham S. and Jack Kay Chair in Israel Studies and Director of the Joseph and Alma Gildenhorn Institute for Israel Studies at the University of Maryland at College Park
The Stepmother Tongue
Sayed Kashua, Israeli journalist, author, and creator of Israel’s prime-time television sitcom Arab Labor
Developments in the Legal Doctrine of Equality in Israel
Prof. Barak Medina, 2012–2013 Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation Visiting Professor (Law)
2011–2012
The Legal and Social Challenges Faced by the Israeli Supreme Court
Daniel C. Kurtzer, S. Daniel Abraham Professor of Middle East Policy, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University; former U.S. Ambassador to Israel and Egypt
Eliezer Rivlin, Deputy President, Supreme Court of Israel
A Democracy Without a Constitution: The Future of Israel’s Survival
Arye Carmon, President, Israel Democracy Institute
Barriers to Entry: Who Builds Fortified Boundaries and Why?
Prof. Ron Hassner, Assistant Professor of Political Science, UC Berkeley; Gilbert Foundation Colloquium Faculty Fellow
Prof. Jason Wittenberg, Associate Professor of Political Science, UC Berkeley; Gilbert Foundation Colloquium Faculty Fellow
The "Distancing Hypothesis": Young American Jews and Israel
Shmuel Rosner, The Jerusalem Post, Author, Shtetl, Bagel, Baseball
When Hard-Liners Opt for Peace: The Political Psychology of Israeli Prime Ministers
Prof. Yael Aronoff, Serling Chair in Israel Studies, Michigan State University
Milk and Honey — or Chlorinated Hydrocarbons? Pollution, Promise, and the Israeli Environment
Prof. Alon Tel, Ben Gurion University; Visiting Professor, Stanford University; Founder, Adam Teva v’Din
Playing Across a Divide: Israeli–Palestinian Musical Encounters
Prof. Ben Brinner, Chair, UC Berkeley Department of Music
2010–2011
Prof. Arieh Saposnik, Gilbert Foundation Professor, Near Eastern Languages & Cultures, UCLA; Director, Nazarian Center for Israel Studies
Prof. Dana Blander, Schusterman Visiting Israel Studies Professor, Department of Political Science, Tufts University
Prof. Arie Dubnov, Goldman Visiting Israel Studies Professor, Department of History, Stanford University
Prof. Nurit Novis-Deutsch, Fulbright Scholar, Institute for Human Development, UC Berkeley
Prof. Ann Swidler, Professor of Sociology, UC Berkeley