About

Prof. Naomi Mandel's research focuses on contemporary literature and critical theory, with special interest in the ethics and aesthetics of violence. She was Professor of English and Film/Media at the University of Rhode Island, USA before joining the faculty at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Mandel’s current research focuses on the visual and literary culture of the digital revolution and the Information Age.

Selected Publications

Naomi Mandel. 2019. “Towards a new complicity for new media.” Comparative Literature Studies (CLS), 56, 4, Pp. 693-710

Mandel, Naomi. Disappear Here: Violence After Generation X. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2015

Mandel, Naomi, ed. Bret Easton Ellis: American Psycho, Glamorama, Lunar Park. London: Continuum, 2011

Durand, Alain-Philippe and Naomi Mandel, eds. Novels of the Contemporary Extreme. London: Continuum, 2006.

Mandel, Naomi. Against the Unspeakable: Complicity, the Holocaust and Slavery in America. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2006.

Selected Awards

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Golda Meir Fellowship Fund, Faculty Fellowship | 2018-2019

 European Institutes for Advanced Study, Warsaw, Poland, 10-month residency Senior Fellowship | 2017-2018

The Israel Science Foundation, grant No. 1555/20. Hacking as Literary and Technological  Reciprocity: Backgrounds and Effects of the Human/Machine Symbiosis | 2020-2024

Teaching

Bachelor's degree courses

Introduction to Fiction

American Literature and Culture

The 20th Century English and American Novel

Hacker Culture 

Classic Science Fiction

Representing Violence, (Amirim honors program)

Master's degree courses

20th Century Literary Theory

The 9/11 Novel

Image/Culture

The Vietnam War in Literature and Film
 

About

Dr. Lee Mordechai is a historian of the Eastern Roman Empire - also called the Byzantine Empire. Mordechai approaches his research through social history, environmental history and the digital humanities. He completed his doctoral studies at Princeton University (graduated in 2017) and went on to postdoctoral studies at the University of Notre Dame (Indiana, USA) and at the Institute of Environmental Studies at Annapolis (Maryland, USA).

Selected Publications

Eisenberg, M. and Mordechai, L., “The Justinianic Plague, Global Pandemics: The Making of the Plague Concept”. American Historical Review 125(5): 1632-1667.

Mordechai, L., “Berytus and the Aftermath of the 551 Earthquake”. Late Antiquity – Studies in Source Criticism 17-18: 197-242.

Mordechai, L., Eisenberg, M., Newfield, T.P., Izdebski, A., Kay, J. and Poinar H. “The Justinianic Plague: An Inconsequential Pandemic?”. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116 (51): 25546-25554.

Mordechai, L., Eisenberg, M. “Rejecting Catastrophe: the case of the Justinianic Plague”. Past and Present 244(1): 3-50.

Haldon, J.F., Mordechai, L., Newfield, T., Chase, A., Izdebski, A., Guzowski, P., Labuhn, I., Roberts, N., “History meets palaeoscience: Consilience and collaboration in studying past societal responses to environmental change”. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115(13): 3210-3218.

Selected Awards

COVID-19 Grants for History in the Public Interest – from Albert Lepage Center for History in the Public Interest at Villanova University

SESYNC Pursuit, “Past Answers to Current Concerns: Historical Cases of Navigating Socio-Environmental Stress”

Fellow of the Israeli Academy of Sciences Junior Scholar Forum for the Social Sciences and Humanities

Princeton's Initiative for Comparative Antiquity support for FLAME

Peter R. Brown Prize for 2017

Teaching

Bachelor's degree courses

Epidemics and Zombies: the history of the end of the world in film

A Clash of Civilizations? Greeks and Persians in Antiquity

The Hellenistic Kingdoms

Disasters in the Late Antique Eastern Mediterranean

Introduction to Ancient Greek History

Introduction to Byzantine History

The Justinianic Plague between History and Science
Master's degree courses

New Directions in Premodern Environmental History

About

Orna Naftali is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Asian Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is an anthropologist of China, and her research includes  the study of children and youth, schooling and education, gender and the fam... morechildhood and youth, education, gender, and the family in modern and contemporary China.

Selected Publications

Children, Rights, and Modernity in China: Raising Self-Governing Citizens (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).

 Children in China (Polity Press, 2016).

"'Being Chinese Means Becoming Cheap Labour': Education, National Belonging, and Social Positionality among Youth in Contemporary China". The China Quarterly (2021), 245: 51–71

"Celebrating Violence? Children, Youth, and War Education in Maoist China (1949-76)". Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth (2021), 14 (2): 254-273

 "Youth Military Training in China: Learning to 'Love the Army'". Journal of Youth Studies. Published Online first, 2020, pp. 1-19. 10.1080/13676261.2020.1828847

Teaching

B.A.

"Class and Consumption in China"

"The Anthropology of Contemporary Chinese Society"

“Internet and the Media in Contemporary China”

"Gender and Sexuality in Modern China"

“Contemporary China"

“Women and Gender in Modern China”

"Education and Politics in China"

M.A.

"Resistance and Protest in Contemporary China"

"The Chinese Family under Revolution and Reform (1900-49)"

"The Family and the State in the People's Republic of China (1949-)"

Research Methods of Modern Chinese Society and Politics”

“Constructions of Modernity in Contemporary China: An Anthropological Perspective”

“State and Society in the PRC: Selected Topics”

About

Tallay Ornan is an expert in ancient Near Eastern art of the 2nd & 1st millennia,focusing on the southern Levant, Mesopotamia & Syria

Selected Publications

T. Ornan 2005. The Triumph of the Symbol, Pictorial Representation of Deities in Mesopotamia and the Biblical

T. Ornan, 2010. “Humbaba, the Bull of Heaven & the Contribution of Images to the Reconstruction of the Gilgameš Epic.” In H.-U. Steymans ed., Gilgamesch – Bilder eines Helden: Ikonographie und Überlieferung von Motiven im Gilgameš-Epos.OBO 245. Fribourg & Göttingen: 229-260

T. Ornan. 2011.“ ‘Let Ba’al be Enthroned’: The Date, Identification and Function of a Bronze Statue from Hazor.” JNES 70.2:. 253-280

T. Ornan. 2012, “The Long Life of a Dead King: A Bronze Statue from Hazor in its Ancient Near Eastern Context.” BASOR 366: 1-23

T. Ornan. 2019. “Unfinished Business: The Relief on the Hammurabi Louvre Stele Revisited.” JCS 71: 85-109

Teaching

MA:

On Visual Narratives: Pictures and Stories in the Ancient Near East [].

Fighting Gods and Nude Goddesses in the Second Millennium Canaanite Art.

Pictures in Context: Assyrian Wall Reliefs circa 900-600 BCE.

Processes of Symbolization in Ancient Near Eastern Art

Pictorial Representations of Soveriegns in the Ancient Near East

About

Dr. Orit Peleg-Barkat is a Classical archaeologist specializing in Hellenistic and Roman art and architecture of the southern Levant, and especially in Hasmonean and Herodian architectural decoration. She has published extensively on the architectural decoration of the Hasmonean and Herodian palaces at Jericho, the mausoleum at Herodium, and the Herodian Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

She has also studied trends and changes in the funerary architecture of Judea in the Hellenistic and Roman eras. In recent years, Dr. Orit Peleg-Barkat has run three archaeological excavations – one at the Byzantine-period village of En Gedi, the other at Horvat Midras in the Judean Foothills, where remains of a Roman temple and a Jewish pyramidal funerary monument were uncovered, and the third in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem.

Selected Publications

Peleg-Barkat O., 2012. “The Relative Chronology of Tomb Façades in Early Roman Jerusalem and Power Displays by the Élite,” Journal of Roman Archaeology 25/1, pp. 403−418

Peleg-Barkat O., 2014. "Fit for a King: Architectural Décor in Judaea and Herod as Trendsetter," Bulletin of the American

School of Oriental Research 371, pp. 141−161

Peleg-Barkat O. (PI.), Geva, H. (C.), and Reich R. (C.), 2017. "A Monumental Herodian Ionic Capital from the Upper City of Jerusalem," Israel Museum Studies in Archaeology 8: 74–95

 Peleg-Barkat O., 2017. The Temple Mount Excavations in Jerusalem, 1968−1978 Directed by Benjamin Mazar, Final Reports, vol. V: Herodian Architectural Decoration and King Herod’s Royal Portico [Qedem series 57], Jerusalem: Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Peleg-Barkat, O., 2019, Herod’s Western Palace in Jerusalem: Some New Insights, Electrum 26: 53-72.

Selected Awards

2015−2019: Individual Research Grant from the Israel Science Foundation, "Continuity and Change in Rural Roman Judaea: Horvat Midras as a Case Study," NIS 860,000. #48, #50, #63, #64

2015: Ruth Amiran Fund for Archaeological Research in Eretz-Israel, “Editing a Festschrift in honour of Prof. Joseph Patrich on the Occasion of his Retirement,” US$ 4,000. #14

2018: Ruth Amiran Fund for Archaeological Research in Eretz-Israel, “Student Academic Tour to Georgia,” US$ 10,000.

2019: Fritz Thyssen Stiftung für Wissenschaftsförderung, "Conference - The Basilica in Roman Palestine, Its Architectural Layout, Role and Function in the Ancient City, University of Tübingen," EU€ 11,000.

2019: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Insight Grant (together with Prof. Gregg Gardner from University of British Columbia, Vancouver), "The Horvat Midras Excavation Project: Cultural Interaction in Rural Roman Judea," CAD$ 69,023.

2020: The Roger and Susan Hertog Center for the Archaeological Study of Jerusalem and Judah Grant, “The Gan HaMisgav Excavations in the Jewish Quarter,” US$ 30,000.

2021: The Roger and Susan Hertog Center for the Archaeological Study of Jerusalem and Judah Grant, “The Gan HaTkumah Excavations in the Jewish Quarter,” US$ 20,000.

Teaching

Fashion Victims of the Ancient World

Alexander the Great and his Heritage

Jerusalem through the Ages – The Tangible Past

Rome and Jerusalem between Augustus and Titus

Introduction to Greek Archaeology

Introduction to Roman Archaeology

Topics in Classical – Byzantine Archaeology: Herodian Art and Architecture

Topics in Classical – Byzantine Archaeology: The Archaeology of Hellenistic Palestine

Josephus' Writings and the Archaeological Finds

The Classical Architectural Decoration

King Herod and other Client Kings

Egyptomania: Egypt in Rome, Rome in Egypt

The Hasmoneans from an Archaeological Perspective - Rebels, Priests and Kings

About

Dr. Ronny Regev’s research focuses on modern U.S. history, with a particular interest in how the political economy and everyday life shape one another.  In 2017, Regev joined the History department at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem as an Assistant Professor. His current research examines African American consumer culture in the first half of the 20th century. Regev teaches courses on African American History, the History of Capitalism, American Consumer Culture, and Labor History.

Selected Publications

Working in Hollywood (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2018).

“Hollywood History is So White,” Reviews in American History 49, no.1 (2021), 70-75.

“We Want No More Economic Islands”: The Mobilization of the Black Consumer Market in Post War U.S. History of Retailing and Consumption 6, no.1 (2020), 45-69.

“Hollywood Works: How Creativity Became Labor in the Studio System,” Enterprise and Society 17, no.3 (September 2016), 591-617.

Selected Awards

Buying Black Power: African Americans in the Era of Mass Consumption and Segregation (1880-1960), Israeli Science Foundation Individual Research Grant (2019-2021)

Teaching

• Bachelor's degree courses
  • History of Capitalism
  • African American History
  • History of the American Workplace
  • American Consumer Culture
  • The Civil Rights Movement
  • The New Deal
  • U.S. in the 1970s
  • U.S. Foreign Policy
     
• Master's degree courses
  • ______

About

Prof. Avinoam Rosenak is a senior lecturer at the Department of Jewish Thought and in the School of Education, Melton Centre for Jewish Education at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He is the former chair of the Jewish Thought department (2010-2013). His field of research is Modern Jewish Philosophy, Religious Zionism, Philosophy of the Halakhah (Jewish Law), and Philosophy of Jewish Education.

Selected Publications

Avinoam Rosenak, (2007), The Prophetic Halakhah: Rabbi A. I. H. Kook's Philosophy of Halakhah, Magnes Press, Jerusalem (Hebrew).

Avinoam Rosenak, (2009), Halakhah as an Agent of Change: Critical Studies in Philosophy of Halakhah, Magnes Press, Jerusalem (Hebrew).

Avinoam Rosenak (2013), Cracks: Rabbi Kook, his Disciples and their Critics, Resling publication, (Hebrew)

Avinoam Rosenak (2009), "Truth Tests, Educational Philosophy and Five Models of the Philosophy of Jewish Law", Hebrew Union College Annual, vol. lxxviii, pp. 149-182

Conflicting Identities: Interfaith Marriage - Philosophical's, Theological's and educational thought's Analisis, Jerusalem, Carmel publication, in print (Hebrew).

Teaching

"Reading in Rabbi Soloveitchik's "Halachic Man

Models in the Philosophy of Halakhah

Streams in the Modern Jewish World: From Spinoza to Reform Judaism Educational Philosophical Challenges and Implications

On the Concept of "Encounter" in Jewis Thought in the Middle Ages and in the Modern Age

Religious Zionism as a Spiritual and Intellectual Challenge: in light of Rabbis Amiel, Soloveitchik, Kook and Hartman,

On Modern Orthodoxy: Reading in the Writings of R. Soloveitchik, R. Kook & R. Hartman and their Students

Philosophy of Halacha and Philosophy of Education

Particularism and Universalism in Jewish Thought and in the Research of Jewish Thought

Philosophical's, Halakhic's and Educational's Dimantion of the Conservative Judaism and Modern Orthodox

Suffering and Death in Jewish Thought

About

Ori Shachmon is an Arabic dialectologist engaged in the study of spoken Arabic dialects. She deals mainly - though not exclusively - with Levantine and Yemeni Arabic. These two clusters of dialects - the former of which is spoken in the immediate geographic vicinity of Israel and the latter of which is found deep in the Southern Arabian peninsula - are essentially distinct in terms of linguistic history, internal development, and contact circumstances. Shachmon’s research is primarily based on first-hand materials collected through linguistic fieldwork among native speakers of the dialects she studies.

Selected Publications

Shachmon, Ori (to appear) Temōnit - The Jewish varieties of Yemeni Arabic. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrasowitz (the Semitica Viva series).

Shachmon, Ori and Michal Marmorstein (2021) “The introductive baka/bāki in Rural Palestinian Arabic”. Journal of Semitic Studies 66,1: 185-214. 

Shachmon, Ori and Noam Faust (to appear) “Avoidance of final monopositional vowels: Evidence from the k-dialects of Yemen”. Brill's Journal of Afroasiatic Languages and Linguistics 12,1.

Shachmon, Ori and Elitzur Bar-Asher Siegal (to appear) “The derivatives of Barth`s Law in the light of modern Arabic dialects”. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies.

Shachmon, Ori and Tom Fogel (to appear) “Phonetic, Analytic and Substitute Writing - Patterns and pitfalls in Goitein’s Yemenite archive”. Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam.

Selected Awards

2010 The Golda Meir Fellowship (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

2011 The Ben-Zvi institute prize for the study of Jewish Communities in the East

2019 Award for excellence in teaching

Teaching

Bachelor's degree courses: Basic Arabic grammar;  Palestinian Dialects; Linguistic fieldwork (applied workshop); Modern Arabic literature

Master's degree courses: Advanced Topics in Arabic Dialectology; Topics in Arabic Socio-linguistics; Yemen: A window into the Arabic language

About

Prof. Michael Segal is the Father Takeji Otsuki Professor of Biblical Studies. His research focuses upon the Hebrew Bible and Jewish literature of the Second Temple period, including the latest books of the Hebrew Bible, Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, and Dead Sea scrolls. He is interested in the literary development of these works, and their significance for how the Bible was received, interpreted and transmitted in antiquity.

Selected Publications

The Book of Jubilees: Rewritten Bible, Redaction, Ideology and Theology (Jerusalem: Hebrew University Magnes Press, 2007; Hebrew) and (Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 117; Leiden: Brill, 2007l English).
Dreams, Riddles, and Visions: Textual, Contextual, and Intertextual Approaches to the Book of Daniel (BZAW 455; Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016).
with Shemaryahu Talmon, The Hebrew University Bible:The Twelve Prophets (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, to appear in 2022)
“Calculating the End: Inner-Danielic Chronological Developments,” Vetus Testamentum 68 (2018): 272–296.
“Reconsidering the Relationship(s) between 4Q365, 4Q365a, and the Temple Scroll,” Revue de Qumran 30 (2018): 213–233.

Selected Awards

Polonsky Prize (First Place, Researcher) for Creativity and Originality in the Humanistic Disciplines

Teaching

Bachelor's degree courses

Introduction to Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible

Ancient Jewish Exegesis

Introduction to Jewish Literature of the Second Temple Period

Book of Judges

Biblical Apocalyptic Literature

Biblical Court Tales (B.A. Seminar)

Literature of the Restoration Period (B.A. Seminar)

Master's degree courses

Aramaic Targumim

The Bible at Qumran: Text, Rewriting and Interpretation

Septuagint of the Book of Daniel

Septuagint of the Book of Ezra-Nehemiah

Septuagint of the Book of Samuel