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President Scholarship | Jack, Joseph & Morton Mandel School for Advanced Studies in the Humanities

President Scholarship

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Itay Abadi

Department of Archaeology

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Subject: The Transition from The Upper Palaeolithic To the Epipalaeolithic In the Southern Levant And the Development of The Microlithic Technology.

Supervisor: Prof. Nigel Goring-Morris

Abstract: The doctoral dissertation focuses on one of the important developments in the of ancient hunting methods in the southern Levant. This change took place during the transition between the transition from the Upper Paleolithic to the Epipaleolithic periods (some 25,000 years ago), due to the development of microlithic tools (small stone tools, carefully designed in standard shapes, used to form composite projectile tools).
The study examines stone tool assemblages from several sites in the southern Levant from the end of the Upper Paleolithic and the beginning of the Epipaleolithic. By combine three different methods to analyze stone tool production (attribute analysis, experimental knapping and core refitting) the study aims to trace the source of this change and its evolution in terms of chronology, technology and style. 

Bio: PhD student at the Institute of Archaeology. Studied for BA and MA at Hebrew University. The MA thesis examining the transition from the Middle to the Upper Palaeolithic in the Levant, and was completed under the guidance of Prof. Anna Belfer-Cohen. The PhD thesis, written under the supervision of Prof. Nigel Goring-Morris, deals with lithic technology changes that seen with the appearance of the Epipalaeolithic in the Levant.

Publications:

  • Grosman, L., Munro, N.D., Abadi, I., Boaretto, E., Shaham, D., Belfer-Cohen, A., Bar-Yosef, O. 2016. Nahal Ein Gev II, a Late Natufian Community at the Sea of Galilee. PLoS ONE 11(1): e0146647. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0146647.
  • Goder-Goldberger, M., Ginat, H., Ragolski, G., Seri, G., Abadi, I. 2017. Middle Palaeolithic Find Spots with Nubian Cores from the Southern Negev and the Arava, Israel. Journal of Lithic Studies 4(1). doi:10.2218/jls.v4i1.1688.
  • Grosman, L., Shaham, D., Valletta, F., Abadi, I., Goldgeier, H., Klein, N., Dubreuil, L., Munro, N.D. 2017. A Human Face Carved on a Pebble from the Late Natufian Site of Nahal Ein Gev II. Antiquity 91(358). doi:10.15184/aqy.2017.122.
  • Abadi, I., Grosman, L. 2019. Sickle Blade Technology in the Late Natufian of the Southern Levant. In Asrtuc L, McCartney C, Briois F, Kassianidou V (Eds.), Near Eastern Lithic Technologies on the Move: Interactions and Contexts in the Neolithic Traditions, 8th International Conference on PPN Chipped and Ground Stone Industries of the Near East, Nicosia, November 23rd–27th 2016. Pp. 295-304. Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology Volume 150. Astrom Editions, Nicosia.
  • Friesem, D.E., Abadi, I., Shaham, D., Grosman, L. 2019. Lime Plaster Cover of the Dead 12,000 Years Ago – New Evidence for the Origins of Lime Plaster Technology. Evolutionary Human Sciences 1: e9. doi: 10.1017/ehs.2019.9.
  • Abadi, I., Bar-Yosef, O., Belfer-Cohen, A. 2020. Kebara V — A Contribution for the Study of the Middle-Upper Paleolithic Transition in the Levant. PaleoAnthropology 2020: 1−28. doi:10.4207/PA.2020.ART139.

President Scholarship 2019/20

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Yaniv Abir

Yaniv Abir

Department of Cognitive Sciences

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Research subject: Epistemic bridges between different levels of explanation in the study of consciousness - a data driven approach

Supervisor: Prof. Ran Hassin

Abstract: Using data-driven methods we are constructing high-dimensional models of the preferences of the human unconscious. Using these models we seek to directly compare the results of different methods of measuring conscious experience and its neural correlates, thus constructing bridges between sometimes disparate methods, anchored in different levels of explanation - biological and psychological.

Bio: I study high-dimensional models of selection for consciousness, hoping to understand the basic priorities of human cognition, and learn about the mechanism behind emergence of content into consciousness.

 Publications:

Abir, Y., Sklar, A. Y., Dotsch, R., Todorov, A., & Hassin, R. R. (Under review). Determinants of conscious experience – a data-driven approach.

 

Presidential Stipend 2017/18

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Shai  Alleson-Gerberg

Shai Alleson-Gerberg

Department of Jewish History

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Subject: The Book of the Words of the Lord: Its linguistic, literary and doctrinal character

Supervisor: Dr. Paweł Maciejko

Abstract: For inveterate eighteenth century opponent of Sabbateanism Rabbi Jacob Emden, skeptical, rationalist worldviews on the one hand and Sabbateanism on the other, constituted the opposite faces of theological heresy that threatened to undermine religious foundations and topple traditional Jewish society. Emden was right. While the God of the philosophers was fettered to the rationalist mechanism of the universe, hidden from the world and indifferent to its fate, ‘the God of Sabbatai Zvi’ was very personal, capricious and unpredictable. He cancelled his Law at a sweep and commanded his messiah to convert. In any case, the old world was crumbling away. Jacob Frank (1726-1791) who is considered to be the most radical Sabbatean representative in the eighteenth century, tried to bring ‘a new thing to the world’ by crushing all the laws and religions including the Sabbatean tradition from which he emerged and Christianity into which he disappeared with his followers. The Book of the Words of the Lord (Zbiór Słów Pańskich), a collection of Frank’s sayings, is a unique reflection of the rupture in Jewish society at turn of the modern era, and a fascinating attempt at religious renewal. 

 

Words of the Lord is the main Frankist source and of the utmost importance for the movement’s history after the Frankists converted to Christianity in 1759, and detailed documentation of their doctrine at its climax. A manuscript in three recensions, it is no ordinary work. Lacking a distinct plot and with no consistent rationale, it is a mixture of fables, dreams, tirades and memories from different times. It is also a stew of different traditions: Be they, rabbinical and Zoharic exegesis or elements of Catholic rite, Polish Kabbalah or Turkish Sabbateanism, Sufi narratives or Slavic folklore. The syncretistic nature of Words of the Lord and the ethos of novelty that echoes constantly throughout, is also expressed in its language. The source is written in Polish inlaid with Hebrew, Yiddish, German, Ladino and Turkish. Its 'iconoclastic' content, use of ‘liminal’ linguistic means, such as multi-lingual puns, and finally, its rejection of the holy tongue in favour of the ‘seventy tongues’ of the nations – all this comprises the new language that Frankists sought to adopt on their twisted path towards the secret gnosis of Edom and the true God. In Frank’s words: ‘When you come to the sun, you must talk like the sun and dress in the same robes as the sun, and when you come to the moon, wear the same robes as the moon and talk in moon language. 

 While research on Words of the Lord has mainly focused on the Kabbalistic and Sabbatian roots of Frankist doctrine, my research will analyse its philological, literary and theological aspects, while taking the wider historical context of the early modern period into account. Baroque phenomena such as the tension between external façade and hermetic internal content, positioning personal religion based on non-traditional reading of the scriptures, abandonment of God and God’s abandonment of the world, the obsession with dreams, etc. – all these are important features of Words of the Lord which need to be considered. In this way, for the first time, a detailed and inclusive picture of the source will emerge. I aim to shed new light on the creation of the anthology, its contacts with various literary and religious traditions, its hermeneutics and finally, also on the inner world of Jacob Frank and his disciples at the turn of the modern era.

 

Presidential Stipend 2014/15

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or amir

Dr. Or Amir

Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies

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Subject: Mamluk Emirs and Sufi Shaykhs: A Study in the Relations between Rulers and Holy Men

Supervisors: Reuven Amitai and Daniella Talmon-Heller

Abstract: This study examines the relations formed between the Mamluk elite and Sufi Shaykhs in Greater Syria (Bilād al-Shām), from both a utilitarian perspective – i.e. bestowing patronage in exchange for religious and political legitimacy; as well as from the perspective of the Mamluks’ sincere belief in the charismatic and thaumaturgic talents of those Shaykhs, and the Mamluks’ active participation in various Sufi rituals. Among the main inquiries of this study will be, to what extant the Mamluks, as well as the historiography composed during their reign, were affected from the Seljuq traditions, which were adopted and developed under the Zengids and Ayyubids; and what can be learned about the Mamluks from their attitude towards those Shaykhs, as well as what can be learned from it about the important role those Shaykhs played in the Islamic society of Late Medieval Syria. 

Publications:

  • "חייהם הדתיים של המוסלמים באזור צפת במאות השלוש-עשרה – ארבע-עשרה על פי מקור חדש-ישן," קתדרה 156 (תשע"ה), 70-39.
  • “Niẓām al-Dīn Yaḥyā al-Ṭayyārī – An Artist in the Court of the Ilkhans and Mamluks”, forthcoming in Asiatische Studien 2017.
  • “Forming a New Local Elite: The ‘Uthmānī Family of Ṣafad”, forthcoming in Proceedings of the Third Conference of the School of Mamluk Studies, Leiden 2018.

 

Presidential Stipend 2014/15

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Roy Amir

Dr. Roy Amir

Philosophy

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Subject: Ground-Laying as the Object's Ground: The Notion of Rationality in
Hermann Cohen's System der Philosophie

Supervisor: Prof. Elhanan Yakira, Dr. Tatiana Karachentseva

Abstract: The work analyses the notion of rationality presented in Hermann Cohen's "System der Philosophie" (1902-1912). In contrast to the customary view, I show that his rationalism is grounded in an intensional theory of conceptuality, taken in the Leibnizian sense. Such a theory comprehends the concept as an expression of the intelligibility of an individual being, an expression of its being a rational possibility, rather than a general-formal relation. The work demonstrates that a reading of Cohen's "logic of origin"  on the base of the principles of a Leibnizian intensional theory of concepts clarifies the internal logic of Cohen's arguments and provides means for evaluating the problematics of rationality placed at the core of the system. I show that Cohen's system attempts to present an intensional rationalism without the (dogmatic) presupposition of the compete rationality of the actual. In that, it represents a unique and philosophically valuable notion of rationality.  

  

I am interested in rationalism (both as a philosophical tradition and as a philosophical stance), Kant, German Idealism and Neo-Kantianism. My research so far has dealt with Cohen's system, with the notion of rationality it embodies, and with the manner in which this notion influences Cohen's ethical, cultural, theological, and political views.   

Publications:

Amir, Roy. Messianism and the Possibility of knowledge in Cohen and Benjamin, Paradigmi. Rivista di critica filosofica (2017:1), pp. 61-78. 

 

Rotenstreich Scholarship 2015/2016

Presidential Stipend 2013/2014

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ahmad

Binyamin Amitai

The department of Hebrew literature

Subject:  Yosef Birbi Nissan's spot in the history of the early Piyut

Avigail Aravana

Avigail Aravna

Department of Bible Studies

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Research subject: Isaiah 24-27 and its Reception in Second Temple literature 

Supervisor: Prof. Michael Segal, Dr. Ronnie Goldstein

Abstract: The study seeks to trace the textual expressions of the unit of prophecies called "The Apocalypse of Isaiah", chapters 24-27, and its development in Second Temple literature.

Bio: Avigail Aravna is a graduate of the Department of Bible at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and will be a doctoral student at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, under the President's Fellowship and a colleague at the Mandel School of Advanced Studies in the Humanities. Her research deals with biblical and external apocalyptic literature during the Second Temple period.

Publications: 

“Sending Subtle Threads of Influence into the Past: A Reexamination of the Relationship between Isaiah 24:6 and Jeremiah 23:10” in:The History of Isaiah: The Making of the Book and its Presentation of the Past (FAT). Edited by T. Hibbard and J. Stromberg. Mohr Siebeck. (forthcoming 2021)
 

Presidential Stipend 2017/18

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Miri Avissar

Miri Avissar

Department of General and Comparative Litrature

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Subject: Ludic Quests: Gogol, Melville, Nabokov

Supervisor: Prof. Ilana Pardes

Abstract: In my doctoral research, provisionally titled "Ludic Quests: Gogol, Melville, Nabokov," I offer a comparative reading of three novels: "Dead Souls," "Moby-Dick," and "Lolita." The focal point of my analysis is the examination of correspondences between the geographic and the poetic-cum-interpretive quests performed in each work. I argue that both types of quests—the literal and the figurative—are characterized by distinct playfulness, a particularly significant manifestation of which is the personages' and speakers' continual digression to the margins of the road and of discourse alike. In addition to explicating philosophical and formal affinities between the three novels with regard to the benefits and the hazards of ludically going off track, my study seeks to trace the Russian-American dialogue in which Nabokov engages with two of his nineteenth-century predecessors.

Publications:

* "על העיוורון: ספר איוב כמודל להארה רוחנית בסונטה התשע-עשרה של
מילטון", מוזה: כתב עת לתלמידי מחקר במדעי הרוח, גיליון 1 (2017): 7-22.

 

Rotenstreich Stipend 2017/18

Presidential Stipend 2015/16

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Asfahan Bahaloul

Asfahan Bahaloul

Department of Jewish history and contemporary Jewry

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Subject: Shaping of the Holocaust in the Arab Newspapers

Supervisor: Dr. Amos Goldberg & Professor Hillel Cohen

Abstract: The media arena is perceived as a key site for the distribution and reproduction of cultural significances, as well as social patterns, thereby reflecting perceptions, standpoints and values. The Israel Arabic press is a tool for shaping the character of the Arab-Palestinian society between two identities: national and civil. The Israel Arabic press has a key role in examining identity-associated dilemmas: parallel trends- The Holocaust memory in Israel and the Arab discourse into this memory can be examined through the cultural approach to media research. The journalistic act serves to expose ideological mechanisms, and so the media at large, particularly the press, construct and shape national narratives among an imaginary community whose individuals have a sense of shared fate.The Arabic press’ choice of highlighting, or ignoring, Holocaust discussions also has its roots in cultural national contexts. In order to discuss the Holocaust’s role in shaping the collective memory of the Arab society in Israel, one can employ the term of naturalisation, coined by Roland Barthes.2 This construction or the lack thereof attests to the ideological view held by the Arabic press in regards to this sensitive issue. It therefore follows that the significances of journalistic texts are constructed by means of symbolic representation systems that make up the cultural-media discourse. The constructs and significances of the Holocaust memory framing are examined using two major perspectives: the narrative, shaped from a cultural or personal point of view, and the constructivist one, whereby knowledge is a product of human construction, not necessarily a reflection of an “objective” reality exposed.

Bio: I analyzed the Arab press with different political orientations and demonstrated the changes of Arab newspaper coverage relating to the Holocaust discourse. I took into account that in the Eighties there was a dramatic increase in publication of new popular Arab media.

New publications such as “Panorama” a weekly tabloid which dealt with not only political issues but also popular culture. On the other hand the Northern communist party paper
“Al Etihad” (The United) and “Sout el Hak” ( The voice of Truth and Justice) which belongs to the Israeli Islamic movement are more extreme newspapers than the moderate Panorama.

Publications:

Shaping of the Holocaust in Arab Newspapers

 

Presidential Stipend 2016/17

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Hallel Baitner

Dr. Hallel Baitner

Talmud and halakha

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Subject: Sifre Zuta beMidbar and its incorporation in Midrash

Supervisor: Prof. Menahem Kahana

Abstract: The Tannaitic midrash Sifre Zuta beMidbar did not survive in its entirety, and some of it was revealed through lone genizah fragments and many quotations in mediaeval rabbinic literature. Like of the halakhic midrash from the school of R. Akiba, this midrash too employs mishnaic material which stood before it in various ways.As it has already been shown, its mishna was not the known mishna of R. Judah the Patriarch, but rather another mishnaic corpus that can teach us the sources and redactional methods of our mishna. My philological-exegetical research aims to characterise this corpus and its ties to our mishna, as well as the ways in which the midrash employs it.

 

Presidential Stipend 2012/13

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Dr. Tali Banin

Department of English

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Research subject: Posthuman Intimacy: Birds in the Discourse of Love of D. H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, and Ford Madox Ford

Supervisor: Dr. Ruben Borg

Abstract: In my doctoral dissertation I look at how early 20th-century British writers employ bird imagery to define love. Using three points of focus - bird song, bird movement, and nesting - I examine how D. H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, and Ford Madox Ford renounce romantic conventions in favor of a "nonhuman love" inspired by bird courtship rituals and behaviors. By working at the intersection of literary modernism, critical animal studies, ornithology, and philosophies of love, I hope to gain a fresh perspective on these canonical writers, which feeds into contemporary discourse both on the posthuman and on the dissolution of the Victorian courtship plot in modernist fiction.     

 

President Stipend 2017/18

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Naama Bar-Eitan Sadovsky

Naama Bar-Eitan Sadovsky

Hebrew Literature

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Subject: Lateness – Poetics of Late Poetry

Supervisor: Dr. Tamar Hess

Abstract: In the dissertation I wish to examine the late poetry of Tuvia Rivner, Israel Pincas, S. Shifra, and Avot Yeshurun in light of the perspective of "late style" and old age.
"Late style" as an independent field of research that offers a multi-directional model for the examination of late works has yet to be assimilated in the research of modern Hebrew poetry. This, despite fascinating and varied developments in this field of research around the world. Studies of the artist as an old man and artistic works towards the end of life have been conducted in recent decades in various fields of art, such as music, painting, and literature, juxtaposing aesthetic research tools and psychoanalytical theories concerning the cycle of life and theories from the field of gerontology, which at the same period of time established itself as an independent scientific field of research.
In the proposed research I wish to open a more significant window upon these developments and, as I mentioned above, use the perspectives of old age and "late style" to examine the late works of the four poets. The working assumption is that this perspective can serve as a valuable interpretive tool for understanding the poetical changes in the late work of these poets and vice versa: A thorough examination of the late works of these poets and the uncovering of the inner dialectical processes that motivate stylistic changes in their work can contribute to the developing theoretical discussion in this field.

Bio: I studied for my BA and MA at Hebrew University, in the Hebrew Literature department, and also completed MA studies on the creative writing track in the Hebrew Literature department of Ben Gurion University in the Negev. In the last years I devoted myself mostly to educating and teaching in the Hebrew University Secondary School (Leyada), and in various academic institutions - in The Hebrew University, David Yellin Teacher’s College, the Academy for Music and Dance, and others. I wrote my M.A. final thesis about Tuvia Rivner's poetry, with a view to examining the existential-linguistic contradiction that is at its core. In the dissertation I deal with the poetic features of late poetry, under the guidance of Dr. Tamar Hess.

 

Presidential Stipend 2016/17

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Moshe Elyashiv Bar-Lev

Dr. Moshe Elyashiv Bar-Lev

Linguistics

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Subject: Homogeneity phenomena and strengthening

Supervisor: Prof. Danny Fox and Dr. Luka Crnič

Publications:

  • “A unified existential semantics for bare conditionals” with Itai Bassi (2016). To appear in Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 21.
  • “De re tenses and Trace Conversion” (2015). In S. D’Antonio, M. Moroney and C.R. Little (eds.), Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT) 25, pp. 184–203.
  • “Hebrew kol: a universal quantifier as an undercover existential” with Daniel Margulis (2014). In U. Etxeberria, A. Fălăuş, A. Irurtzun and B. Leferman (eds.), Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 18, pp. 60–76.

 

 

Presidential Stipend 2015/16

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אסף

Asaf Ben Haim

https://huji.academia.edu/AsafBenHaim

Archaeology and Ancient Middle Eastern studies

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Subject:  The Development of the Urban Layout at the South-Western Hill of Jerusalem from the Hellenistic Period to the Destruction of the City on AD70

Supervisor:  Dr. Orit Peleg-Barkat

Abstract:  I’m an archaeologist; specializing in classical periods at the levant, in architectural decoration and in the application of computational methods and 3D modeling on the study of stone decoration. In my PhD I am studying the development of the urban layout at the south-western hill of Jerusalem from the Hellenistic period to the destruction of the city in AD70.
I am a graduate of the Mandel School M.A. Research Track Honors Program and the “Late Antiquity” interdisciplinary M.A. Research Honors Program. In my masters I have studied the architectural decoration found at the fortress-palace in Herodium, its cultural influence and stone-carving methods.
I am the head of the New Hebrew University Expedition for the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem, together with Dr. Orit Peleg-Barkat and Dr. Oren Gutfeld; member of the Ehud Netzer Expedition for Herodium; member of the Hebrew University Expedition for Horvat Midras.

Publications:  Peleg-Barkat, O. and Ben-Haim, A. (2017). ‘Monumental Ionic columns from areas Q and H’, in:Geva, H., Jewish Quarter Excavations in the Old City of Jerusalem Conducted by Nahman Avigad, 1969–1982, volume VI: Areas J, N, Z and Other Studies, The Israel Exploration Society and the Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, pp. 68–95.

בן־חיים, א׳ וכלף, א׳ (2018). ״עדויות למבנה מונומנטלי ממערב להר־הבית בשלהי ימי הבית השני״. חידושים בארכיאולוגיה של ירושלים וסביבותיה, י״ב, 56–77.

Ben-Haim, A. (forthcoming), ‘The Architectural Decoration of Lower Herodium’, in: Porat, R., Kalman, Y., and Chachy, R., Herodium II: Lower Herodium and other studies, The Israel Exploration Society and the Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

בן־חיים, א׳ (בדפוס). ״עיטורי האבן בארמון־מבצר ההר בהרודיון: אומנים וסגנונות בחצרו של הורדוס״, ארץ ישראל ל״ה: ספר הלל גבע. החברה לחקירת ארץ־ישראל ועתיקותיה, ירושלים.

Year: 2021/2022 President Stipend

MA Honors Program 2015/16

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Moran

Dr. Moran Benit

Department of Hebrew Literature

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Subject: Ronit Matalon: A Writer and Intellectual

Supervisor: Hannan Hever

Abstract: My research project is devoted to the Mizrahi Israeli writer Ronit Matalon. Despite her canonic status in contemporary Israeli literature, her work has not to date been adequately studied by scholars and critics. Through close readings of her fiction and non-fiction publications over the last three decades, the research examines the process whereby Matalon has become a major Mizrahi intellectual and writer in Israeli culture. Besides Matalon’s own Bildung the project examines a parallel process experienced by her protagonists: all young Mizrahi women going out into the world and establishing their identities as educated, women writers.

Presidential Stipend 2012/13

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Shraga Bick

Department of Comparative Religion

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Research subject: "Keep the Commandments": the construction of "the Commandments" and their role in forming social identity in Christianity and Judaism in late antiquity.

Supervisor: Prof. Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony

Abstract: In my dissertation I intend to examine the ways in which the discourse on the Commandments ("mitzvot") functions as a tool in the attempt to reshape religious communities in the Jewish-Christian space of late antiquity. During this period, different communities continue to insist on keeping and practicing in one form or another the "Commandments", but often without a clear definition of the meaning and scope of this term. At the same time, the concept of the "Commandments", serves as a polemical tool in both Christian and Jewish texts, but even there it is difficult to find a clear and unequivocal definition. In my dissertation I will seek to trace the ways in which this category is used to reconstruct the religious discourse and practice in late antiquity.

Bio: I hold a M.A in Comparative Religion (summa cum laude) and a B.A in Law and Comparative Religion (magna cum laude) from the Hebrew University. My thesis, entitled "But I am Prayer: Voice, Body and the Anthropology of the Praying Self in Rabbinic and Syriac-Christian Literature", was written under the supervision of Prof. Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony. For this work I received the Polonsky Prize for Creativity and Originality in the humanistic disciplines (2017). In addition, I am a fellow in the doctoral program on human rights and Judaism at the Israel Democracy Institute.

 

Azrieli Fellows Scholarship 2019/20
President Stipend 2017/18

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Rebecca  Biton

Dr. Rebecca Biton

The institute of Archaeology

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Subject: Archaeozoological Study of Amphibians and Reptiles from Pleistocene and Holocene Archaeological Sites in the Hula Valley, Israel

Supervisor: Dr. Rivka Rabinovich

Abstract: My Ph.D. dissertation focus on sites in a restricted geographical area, the HulaValley, in north Israel. The HulaValley encompasses a complex of distinct water bodies, including the LakeHula and its swamps, numerous springs and streams which has yielded important archaeological records of human occupation dating from one million years ago. That research will concentrate on three excavated, well-dated sites: Gesher Benot Ya'aqov (GBY) – a Lower Paleolithic site (Early-Middle Pleistocene, ca. 780,000 B.P.),Nahal Mahanayeem Outlet (NMO) – A Mousterian site (Late Pleistocene, ca. 70,000 B.P.), Ain Mallaha/Eynan – A Natufian site (Late Pleistocene, ca. 12,000 B.P.) excavated by Prof. F. Valla

The study has two main objectives

Taxonomic identification of amphibian and reptile species present in the Hula Valley from the Lower Paleolithic to the Natufian period

To shed light on the nature of the human- amphibian and reptile relationships throughout the different periods and cultures within those chronological contexts. Were amphibian and reptile species collected and utilized by hominins and, if so, how may they have been utilized

Snakes, tortoises, pond turtles, lizards and amphibians are present at all sites, and their taxonomic identification will make a major contribution towards the understanding of paleonvironment and paleoclimate of the Hula Valley during the Pleistocene and Early Holocene

It is already obvious that the species distribution and the number of bones retrieved varies significantly from site to site, indicating a unique story for each, a story that will hopefully shed light on the as yet unknown relationship between humans and herpetofauna during the prehistoric periods in Israel

 

Presidential Stipend 2012/13

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