Project MUSE®: Israel Studies - Latest Articles
https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/85
Project MUSE®: Latest articles in Israel Studies.daily12026-05-17T00:00:00-05:00text/htmlen-USVol. 1 (1996) through current issueLatest Articles: Israel StudiesTWOProject MUSE®Israel Studies1527-201x1084-9513Latest articles in Israel Studies. Feed provided by Project MUSE®Editor's Introduction—Thirty Years of Israel Studies
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/983158
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This issue marks the completion of the first thirty years of Israel Studies. The establishment of the journal constituted an important moment of quickening for the field of Israel Studies generally, and throughout its three decades of scholarly publication, it has continued to serve as an important platform for scholars and scholarship in the field. Indeed, over the past three decades, Israel Studies has offered a scholarly platform for exploring the complex and evolving nature of Israeli society, politics, and culture. This thirty-year milestone thus offers an opportunity to look back—at the trajectories the field has taken, the questions that have shaped it, and the ways it has responded to broader historical and
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-17T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/85/image/coversmallEditor's Introduction—Thirty Years of Israel Studies2026-02-21text/htmlen-USEditor's Introduction—Thirty Years of Israel Studies2026-02-212026TWOProject MUSE®44242026-05-17T00:00:00-05:002026-02-21Israel Studies: Beginnings and Definition
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/983159
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On August 18, 1975, just over 50 years ago, I arrived with my family on Aliya. We left the Midwest and an American university and were headed for the Negev and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev where I would teach American History. Although I had extensive training in Jewish history, I came as an American historian with special interests in the history of education and urban planning. I was curious then, and have continued to be curious throughout my life, about the institutionalization of ideas—that is, what happens to an idea, how it is altered, developed, and compromised in the course of its implementation. This very brief personal sketch will perhaps explain a bit of the development of the journal this volume
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-17T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/85/image/coversmallIsrael Studies: Beginnings and Definition2026-02-21text/htmlen-USIsrael Studies: Beginnings and Definition2026-02-212026TWOProject MUSE®408172026-05-17T00:00:00-05:002026-02-21Reflections on Israel Studies as an Academic Discipline after 28 years of Editing the Israel Studies Journal
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/983160
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I welcome this opportunity to reflect upon 30 years of Israel Studies. Over the course of 28 of those years, I served as managing editor and as co-editor of the journal. Israel Studies is an internationally-oriented journal and as such is a flagship of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. It is achieving goals set out in the preface of the first issue 1.1 (fall 1996) more than thirty years ago:"The launching of Israel Studies reflects the growing interest in the study of the State of Israel and represents an attempt to stimulate and enrich such scholarship. Israel is currently investigated by scholars with divergent methodological and historiosophical approaches and their debates are often vigorous and intense.
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-17T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/85/image/coversmallReflections on Israel Studies as an Academic Discipline after 28 years of Editing the Israel Studies Journal2026-02-21text/htmlen-USReflections on Israel Studies as an Academic Discipline after 28 years of Editing the Israel Studies Journal2026-02-212026TWOProject MUSE®198592026-05-17T00:00:00-05:002026-02-21Continuity and Change in the Field of Israel Studies: Reflections of the Past Forty Years and Possible Future Directions
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/983161
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Reflecting on the history of the field of Israel Studies over the past forty years, it is undeniable that this is a story of tremendous growth and dynamism. Since the formal inception of the field in the 1980s, it has seen the establishment of the Association of Israel Studies and the tremendous growth in membership of that organization; the publication of the multiple journals and book series focused on Israel Studies, including Israel Studies Review and Israel Studies; the growth in the number of scholars teaching Israel Studies courses, in co-curricular programming focused on Israel Studies, and education abroad programs to Israel; the proliferation of conferences focused on aspects of Israel Studies; and the
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-17T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/85/image/coversmallContinuity and Change in the Field of Israel Studies: Reflections of the Past Forty Years and Possible Future Directions2026-02-21text/htmlen-USContinuity and Change in the Field of Israel Studies: Reflections of the Past Forty Years and Possible Future Directions2026-02-212026TWOProject MUSE®469852026-05-17T00:00:00-05:002026-02-21Israel Studies and Comparative Social Science
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/983162
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The field of Israel Studies has been an important academic gathering place for scholars, largely but not exclusively in the humanities and social sciences, who share a scholarly passion for and scientific interest in investigating the multiple dimensions of Israel—its culture, history, politics and society to name but a few. Israel Studies, the flagship journal of the field for the past three decades, has accurately reflected this diversity of interests, and the methodological pluralism that necessarily comes with such diversity, by publishing a wide variety of scholarship that engages with Israel. In this regard, Israel Studies, both the field and the journal, is not unlike other area studies that have a focus on
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-17T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/85/image/coversmallIsrael Studies and Comparative Social Science2026-02-21text/htmlen-USIsrael Studies and Comparative Social Science2026-02-212026TWOProject MUSE®493872026-05-17T00:00:00-05:002026-02-21Israel Studies—A Pariah Discipline?
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/983163
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In 2019, this journal put out a special issue on what it called "Word Crimes." The articles in the issue harshly criticized representations of Israel in North American academia as uninformed, monolithic, and malevolent. At the time, I was a member of this journal's editorial board, and I was unhappy about both the nature of the articles, many of which I believed to be crude and polemical, and the fact that the journal's editorial board had not been consulted about the issue in advance. I resigned from its editorial board, and many others on the board followed.Yet here I am, six years later, writing for the journal from which I had walked away. Why? I make no claims that my essay is a work of scholarship. It is an
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-17T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/85/image/coversmallIsrael Studies—A Pariah Discipline?2026-02-21text/htmlen-USIsrael Studies—A Pariah Discipline?2026-02-212026TWOProject MUSE®239882026-05-17T00:00:00-05:002026-02-21Israel Studies—A Discipline in Need of Normalization (that will never come)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/983164
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In April 2016, I was invited by the director of the Institute of the Middle and Far East at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków to join a team of scholars tasked with designing and launching an Israel Studies track. It proved to be a success—for several years, the university offered two separate Middle Eastern BA programs: "Israel" and "Arab World." At the time, however, it was far from certain that such a narrowly defined field of study would attract sufficient student interest. In Europe, modern Israel had typically been studied within the frameworks of Jewish or Hebrew Studies; thus, the creation of a stand-alone Israel Studies program was a unique endeavor. Ultimately, the two tracks were merged into a single
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-17T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/85/image/coversmallIsrael Studies—A Discipline in Need of Normalization (that will never come)2026-02-21text/htmlen-USIsrael Studies—A Discipline in Need of Normalization (that will never come)2026-02-212026TWOProject MUSE®600662026-05-17T00:00:00-05:002026-02-21Trapped Between Pariah Status and Advocacy: Current Challenges for Israel Studies
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/983165
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Israel Studies experiences today one of the rare moments that we might call a paradigm shift for an entire discipline. The first major paradigm shift for this still young academic field occurred in the late 1980s and in the 1990s with the rise of the so-called "New Historians." The opening of archives forty years after Israel's War of Independence and the gaining of distance from the events themselves, led a younger generation of historians, sociologists, and political scientists to question some of the long-standing truths in the academic field.1The challenges almost forty years later are of a different nature. Then, Israel faced a struggle about the interpretation of its birth, and the flight and expulsion of
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-17T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/85/image/coversmallTrapped Between Pariah Status and Advocacy: Current Challenges for Israel Studies2026-02-21text/htmlen-USTrapped Between Pariah Status and Advocacy: Current Challenges for Israel Studies2026-02-212026TWOProject MUSE®345252026-05-17T00:00:00-05:002026-02-21The Memory Studies Perspective on Israel Studies
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/983166
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The thirtieth anniversary of Israel Studies presents an important landmark in the development of Israel Studies as an academic field. Launched around a decade after the establishment of the Association for Israel Studies (AIS), the journal's current anniversary corresponds to the accepted notion of a "generation." The invitation to write for this issue has thus made me more acutely aware not only that I belong to the ranks of the "elders" who had been involved with the AIS and the journal since their early years, but also the extent to which my own postdoctoral development had been intertwined with the nascent field of Israel Studies. In the late 1970s, when I was a doctoral student, one could find panels related
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-17T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/85/image/coversmallThe Memory Studies Perspective on Israel Studies2026-02-21text/htmlen-USThe Memory Studies Perspective on Israel Studies2026-02-212026TWOProject MUSE®748632026-05-17T00:00:00-05:002026-02-21Israel Studies in Perilous Times: Dealing with Deep Divisions at Home and Unprecedented Challenges Abroad
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/983167
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Precisely because Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remain central to public debate, the insights of Israel Studies are more necessary than ever.There is a link between the conditions in Israel and the perception of Israel in the world, on the one hand, and the status of Israel Studies as a field of scholarship, teaching and activity, on the other hand. This link is particularly strong today, following three years of a series of unprecedently dramatic events that have impacted Israel domestically and internationally and, at the same time, have impacted Israel Studies. This essay will deal briefly with the conditions of Israel and their perception in the world in late 2025, and more extensively with the
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-17T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/85/image/coversmallIsrael Studies in Perilous Times: Dealing with Deep Divisions at Home and Unprecedented Challenges Abroad2026-02-21text/htmlen-USIsrael Studies in Perilous Times: Dealing with Deep Divisions at Home and Unprecedented Challenges Abroad2026-02-212026TWOProject MUSE®775922026-05-17T00:00:00-05:002026-02-21Israel Studies at Intersecting Crises—Reflections of a (Zionist) Historian of Zionism
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/983168
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Both Israel and Israel Studies are in a moment of transformation, a moment of crisis. In broader context, this is a critical moment for the fundamental epistemological tenets that have served as the undergirding of humanities research and for the ethical values that are at the foundations of liberal democracy. We are, in other words, in the midst of a combination of crises—in Israel and in the academic world—that brings with it a set of profound challenges to the field of Israel Studies.Not too many years ago, I wrote a piece in which I argued that "The greatest challenge for Zionism in the early twenty-first century is […] to wrest back its own ideals and vision, to expose the recasting of Zionism (by detractors
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-17T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/85/image/coversmallIsrael Studies at Intersecting Crises—Reflections of a (Zionist) Historian of Zionism2026-02-21text/htmlen-USIsrael Studies at Intersecting Crises—Reflections of a (Zionist) Historian of Zionism2026-02-212026TWOProject MUSE®461732026-05-17T00:00:00-05:002026-02-21Exploring the Landscape: Israel Studies in Non-Western Contexts
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/983169
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Israel Studies has emerged as a significant academic field in recent decades, engaging scholars across various disciplines, including history, political science, sociology, cultural studies, and religious studies, among others. Traditionally, the growth of Israel Studies has been concentrated in North America, Europe—particularly in the UK—and Israel itself, where academic networks, funding opportunities, and institutional support have facilitated the field's development. This Western-centric focus has shaped dominant narratives and research agendas within Israel Studies, often privileging perspectives rooted in Western academic traditions and political contexts. However, there is an increasing recognition of the
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-17T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/85/image/coversmallExploring the Landscape: Israel Studies in Non-Western Contexts2026-02-21text/htmlen-USExploring the Landscape: Israel Studies in Non-Western Contexts2026-02-212026TWOProject MUSE®1189542026-05-17T00:00:00-05:002026-02-21