Ph.D. Student Avi-Ram Zoref of the Department of Jewish History has been awarded a Presidential Fellowship for Scientific Excellence and Innovation 2015. This year’s topic was: “Judaism, Christianity and Islam: Points of Contention and Connection in and between Religions, Cultures, Languages and Peoples.”
President Reuven Rivlin personally called Zoref to inform him of the good news. He also expressed great interest in Zoref’s PhD topic, among other reasons, because of President Rivlin's father (Prof. Yoel Yosef Rivlin - a renowned scholar of Islam)’s connection to the topic.
Zoref’s PhD focuses on the religious, literary and political perspectives in the writings of author and essayist Yehoshua Radler-Feldman (R’ Binyamin) one of the central figures in the dual nationality movement that was active in the Land of Israel in the first half of the 20th Century, who sought to lay a foundation for cordial contact between Jews and Arabs on the basis of the cultural and religious connections between Judaism and Islam. The dissertation covers the Galician background of R’ Binyamin as a basis for discussing the complex philosophy of someone who identified simultaneously with different groups, who undermined differences between religion and secularity, West and East, and who wrote for many different publications: Ha'herut, Ha'poel Ha'tzair, Ha'tzofeh, the Haredi magazine Ha'hed, which he edited, and even in the Arab press.
President Rivlin was gratified to hear that his father, Yoel Yosef, who translated the Koran and A Thousand and One Nights from Arabic into Hebrew, figures prominently in Zoref’s dissertation. Rivlin told Zoref his father had been a member of the dual nationality movement as well.
According to Zoref’s advisor, Prof. Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin, “Avi-Ram is an exceptional person, who is studying to be a rabbi alongside his wonderful doctorate.” Zoref, 27, lives in Yeruham with his wife and daughter.
The fellowship will be awarded to Zoref at a ceremony at the Presidential Residence on December 17, 2015.
