CSoC's Cohort for the 2022-2023 Academic Year:

Bat-ami Artzi:

Dr. Artzi, PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, is an art historian, archaeologist, and curator interested in Andean visual and material culture created by ancient and early colonial indigenous societies. Her research focuses on the material representation of ideas through the f​unctions, forms, technologies, materials, iconographies, and aesthetics of artworks. Her stud​​ies explore three thematic axes as portrayed throug​​h artistic expression: ecologies, plants, and landscape; ancient Andean gender s​tructures; and the Spanish invasion from the indigenous perspective. Dr. Artzi's studies were funded by the Harvard University's Du​​mbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, the Institute for Art History in Florence (Max Planck Society), the​ Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, and the Hebrew University of Jeru​salem. For one of he​​​r publications she has been awarded the Polonsky Prize for Creativity and Originality in the Humanistic Disciplines.​​

bat-ami.artzi@mail.huji.ac.il​​

Yiftach Ashkenaz​i:

Dr. Ashkenazi is a modern Hebrew literature scholar. He completed his Ph.D. at the Ben Gurion University of Negev. His Ph.D. dissertation titled: "The Year 2008 in the Israeli Literature" studied the literature ecology and the book market's influences on cultural production. Currently, Yiftach's research focuses on the qualities, function, and virtues of the literary community, especially the southern literature communities, and their religious and environmental commitment. Dr. Ashkenazi is also a novelist. He won Rotenstreich Fellowship for Outstanding Doctoral Students, the Israeli Prime Minister's Prize for excellence in creative writing, and various scholarships and awards.

yiftach_ashkenazi@yahoo.com​

Samuel Glauber-Zimra

Glauber-Zimra is a PhD candidate in the Department of Jewish Thought at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. His dissertation, written un​​​der the supervision of Prof. Jonatan Meir, explores Jewish engagement with modern occult currents in early-twentieth-century Eastern Europe. His research has been published in Correspondences, Nashim, Jewish Historical Studies, Kabbalah, and East European Jewish Affairs, and he was most recently the 2021-2022 recipient of the Fellowship in American Jewish Studies at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. As a fellow at the Center for the Study of Conversion and Inter-Religious Encounters, he will research the influence of parapsychological and occult paradigms on early-twentieth-century rabbinic perceptions of nature. 

glauber@post.bgu.ac.il​

Gal Sofer:

Sofer is a historian of Jewish and Christian magic. Specifically, he studies demonic magic from the late Middle Ages to the modern period, with a special interest in Solomonic magic and​ its reception. Using manuscripts and sources in various languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, Italian, French, Latin, and Greek), he intends to trace the routes through which knowledge of cross-cultural practices was transmitted. In his doctoral dissertation, Gal explored magical manuscripts that focus on the constraining of demons and their reception by Jewish and Christian Kabbalists as well as contemporary practitioners. He is a graduate of the Azrieli Foundation Fellows Program. Medically trained (MD), he is an adjunct lecturer in the faculty of health sciences where he teaches cardiovascular physiology and pathophysiology. He also prepares nurses for the government licensure exams in general surgery, neurology, hematology, and endocrinology.

gal.sofer1@gmail.com

GalSofer.com

Ophir Weinshall-Shachar:

Dr. Weinshall-Shachar is an organizational sociologist. Her research deals with the organizational and social aspects in the environmental field; the way it emerges and is institutionalized as well as the ​effect of the dynamic relationships between organizations and their fields of activity. Her Ph.D. dissertation, from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, encompasses the causes and conditions which propel institutionalized organizations or domains toward marginal positioning in the environmental field in Israel. Ophir is a member of the administration for the Environment and Society Section in the Israeli Sociological Society. In addition, Ophir is an adjunct lecturer at Hebrew University and Haifa University and leads seminars on sustainability issues, Environmental Justice and Equity. As part of the post-doc program, Ophir seeks to focus on the contribution of social entrepreneurs to the promotion of Jewish environmental ethics among religious populations.​

ophirws@gmail.com​