European Association of Israel Studies

European Association of Israel Studies

EAIS TRANSITION - completed

European Association of Israel Studies

EAIS TRANSITION - completed

Promoting, encouraging and supporting the independent, academic studies of Israel

Who We Are and What We Do

The European Association of Israel Studies (EAIS) is an independent, international, and scholarly association devoted to the academic study of Israel. We are a membership organization open to all individuals who are engaged in or share an interest in the scholarly study of Israeli society, politics, and culture, and the historical development of these aspects in historic Palestine and Israel.

We are committed to rigorous academic scholarship about Israel and high quality research and teaching in this area, as well as increasing the breadth of study of this important part of the Middle East. This commitment is reflected in our vision, mission, and values, and in the range of exciting Israel Studies events, resources, and opportunities we provide for our members:

Our vision is to become the leading non-partisan, academic, scholarly, and intellectual association for Israel Studies in Europe.

Our mission is to promote, encourage, and support the independent, academic study of Israel across Europe.

Our values are: Non-partisanship, Non-advocacy, Transparency, Openness to all, Academic excellence.

In ensuring these values, we embrace rigorous scholarship and informed debated.

Board

Artur Skorek

Chairperson

Assistant professor at the Department of Israel, Jagiellonian University in Krakow (UJ), a political scientist specializing in the political system of Israel and international relations in the Middle East.

artur.skorek@uj.edu.pl

Marcela Menachem Zoufalá

Vice-Chairperson

Cultural anthropologist, lecturer, and researcher at the Centre for the Study of the Holocaust and Jewish Literature, Faculty of Arts, Charles University. In the field of Israel Studies, her research interests combine Mizrahi Studies, ethnicity, and gender. Recently, she has focused on Jewish-Muslim relations from a transurban comparative perspective.

marcela.zoufala@gmail.com

Joanna Guzik

TREASURER

Assistant Professor at the Institute of Middle and Far East Studies, Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. Doctor in history also from Jagiellonian University for thesis “Japan’s policy towards Jewish issue 1932-1948”.

joanna.guzik@uj.edu.pl

Johannes Becke

Member

Professor for Israel and Middle East Studies at the Heidelberg Center for Jewish Studies (Hochschule für Jüdische Studien Heidelberg) and a coopted member of the Philosophical Faculty of Heidelberg University. His research projects and publications focus on the comparative politics of Israel and the Middle East.

johannes.becke@hfjs.eu

Joanna Dyduch

Member

Professor at the Jagiellonian University in the Institute of the Middle and Far East, head of its Department of Israel. She completed her PhD in political science from Wrocław University.

joanna.dyduch@uj.edu.pl

Academic Council

Colin Shindler

HONORARY PRESIDENT AND FOUNDING
CHAIR

Colin Shindler is Honorary President and Founding Chair of the EAIS. He is an emeritus professor at SOAS University of London and the author of eight books about Israeli history and politics.

Alain Dieckhoff

ACADEMIC COUNCIL MEMBER

Alain Dieckhoff is CNRS research professor at the Centre for International Studies, Sciences Po Paris. He holds degrees from the University of Paris 10-Nanterre and Sciences Po. He is co-founder of the Observatoire international du religieux and a member of the editorial boards of Politique et sociétés, Questions internationales and Journal of Modern Jewish Studies. He is an international fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences of the Royal Society of Canada.

Olaf Glöckner

ACADEMIC COUNCIL

Olaf Glöckner, PhD, is Research Associate at the Moses Mendelssohn Centre for European-Jewish Studies in Potsdam (MMZ). He is also Lecturer at the Historical Institute and at the Department of Jewish Studies at Potsdam University. His main foci of research are on Jewish Migration, European Jewry after 1989/90, German-Israeli relations and modern anti-Semitism.

Sharon Pardo

ACADEMIC COUNCIL

Prof. Sharon Pardo (Ph.D., Ghent University, Faculty of Political and Social Studies) is a Jean Monnet Chair ad personam in European Studies in the Department of Politics and Government at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU). Pardo is the Chairperson of The Simone Veil Research Centre for Contemporary European Studies at BGU, and the President of the Israeli Association for International Studies.

Ilan Peleg

ACADEMIC COUNCIL MEMBER

Ilan Peleg is the former president of the Association for Israel Studies and the Founding Editor-in-Chief of the AIS’ scholarly journal. He is the author or editor of over 100 articles and 15 books, including Democratizing the Hegemonic State and Israel’s Palestinians: The Conflict Within. His interests include the Israeli Right, Arab-Israeli Relations, Israel’s Foreign Relations, US Foreign Policy, Ethnic Politics, Political Corruption and Populism.

Anders Persson

ACADEMIC COUNCIL MEMBER

Anders Persson’s research interest is the role of the European Union in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He has written three books about this topic, of which the latest is EU Diplomacy and the Israeli-Arab Conflict, 1967–2019 (Edinburgh 2020). He has also published peer-reviewed articles in journals such as „Journal of Common Market Studies”, „Mediterranean Politics”, „Journal of European Integration”, and „Middle East Critique”.

Avi Shilon

ACADEMIC COUNCIL MEMBER

Avi Shilon is a historian of modern Israel and Zionism. He is the author of Menachem Begin: A Life (Yale University Press, 2013); Ben Gurion: His Later Years in the Political Wilderness (Rowman and Littlefield, 2016); and The Decline of the Left-wing in Israel (I.B. Tauris 2021). Shilon is currently a senior lecturer at the Tel Hai Academic College in Israel.

David Tal

ACADEMIC COUNCIL MEMBER

Professor David Tal is the Yossi Harel Chair in Modern Israel Studies at the University of Sussex. Prior to that he was the Kahanoff Chair in Israel Studies at the University of Calgary. His main fields of expertise are Israel’s military and diplomatic history, Israel-US relationship and US disarmament policy. He authored more than 40 articles, five books and edited two.

Przemyslaw Turek

ACADEMIC COUNCIL

Przemyslaw Turek PhD, Associate Professor at the Institute of the Middle and Far East of the Jagiellonian University, head of the Chair of North and Sub-Saharan Africa, a scholar of Oriental and Polish studies.

Alla Zakharchenko

ACADEMIC COUNCIL MEMBER

Alla Zakharchenko is Associate Professor at the Department of International Relations, Odessa Mechnikov National University, Ukraine. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Sciences from the Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Kyiv (2006). She served as Senior Research Fellow at the National Institute for Strategic Studies under the President of Ukraine (2003-2015).

Timea Crofony

ACADEMIC COUNCIL MEMBER

Timea Crofony is a PhD student of ethnology and socio-cultural anthropology at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague. Her academic focus is on the crossroads of Israel studies, Jewish studies and gender studies.

Our Partners:

Jagiellonian University in Krakow was founded in 1364 by Casimir III the Great, the Jagiellonian University is the oldest university in Poland, the second oldest university in Central Europe, and one of the oldest surviving universities in the world. Notable alumni include astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, poet Jan Kochanowski, Polish King John III Sobieski, constitutional reformer Hugo Kołłątaj.
The Israel Institute enhances knowledge about modern Israel through the expansion of accessible, innovative learning opportunities, on and beyond campus. The Institute’s many programmes and initiatives advance rigorous teaching, research, and discourse about modern Israel. The Israel Institute kindly provides essential financial support for our Annual Conference.