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My research lies at the intersection of political and legal theory and history, exploring how ideas are translated into policy, law, and political practice. By tracing how concepts are mobilized, contested, and institutionalized, I develop a historically grounded understanding of political action and statecraft. This integrative approach has shaped three main fields of inquiry in my work: regulatory history, the political and intellectual history of the Israeli right, and the theory and practice of emergencies and crises.

Fields of Research

My principal field of research focuses on the intellectual and political history of the Israeli right, with particular attention to questions of democracy, governance, and constitutional thought. My doctoral dissertation examined Menachem Begin’s worldview of Law and regime (1948–1977), tracing his vision of democracy and the institutional principles that shaped it.

Building on this foundation, “The Road Not Taken: Menachem Begin’s Position on the Forming of a Democratic Regime for Israel” (Israel Studies Review) illuminated the right’s early constitutional thought, showing that Begin and Herut advanced a presidential model of democracy based on a strict separation of powers and a formal constitution. Further developing this inquiry, ‘Son of Arabia, Son of Nazareth, and My Son’: Herut’s Stand on the Imposition of Military Rule, 1948–1966” (Middle Eastern Studies) analyzed Herut’s campaign to abolish military rule over Israel’s Arab citizens, identifying it as a liberal struggle rooted in the right’s commitment to civic equality. Most recently, “From the Rule of Law to the Law of the Ruler: The Twofold Upheaval of the Israeli Right” (Israel Studies) argues that the 2023 judicial reform marks a deep ideological rupture within the Israeli right, representing a transformation in its understanding of democracy and governance.

My study, “Civil Disobedience in Defense of Democracy: Menachem Begin and the Struggle Against Emergency Laws in Israel, 1948–1954,” , published in Law & History Review, offers both a theoretical and historiographical contribution, revealing Begin’s resistance to Israel’s emergency laws. At the heart of this historical case study lies a paradigmatic question: how can laws that erode foundational—yet abstract—democratic principles, such as the separation of powers, be effectively resisted, and can such resistance be accommodated within traditional frameworks of civil disobedience? Begin’s struggle brings these questions into sharp relief, illuminating longstanding critiques of the framework’s overly restrictive boundaries and underscoring the tension between theoretical frameworks and political reality. More broadly, the study engages central debates at the intersection of law, politics, and democratic thought. Examining the democratic convictions of a prominent right-wing leader, it contributes to historical scholarship on the role of conservative and right-wing movements in shaping democratic ideologies, while also providing a historical reference point for subsequent ideological transformations and radicalization processes within these movements. Finally, by illuminating the complexities inherent in opposing laws that erode core-yet abstract-democratic principles, this study resonates with contemporary debates on democratic backsliding, offering a historical lens through which civil disobedience has served as a principled response to such challenges.

Beyond individual studies, I have worked to develop and to institutionalize this field of research. In 2024, I was awarded a four-year Israel Science Foundation (ISF) grant for my project “The Democratic History of the Israeli Right, 1948–1992.” The project will produce foundational studies on Israel’s constitutional and political development, tracing the right’s evolving conceptions of democracy, sovereignty, and the rule of law.

More broadly, my long-term scholarly vision is to undertake a conceptual and historiographical re-mapping of the Israeli right as a political movement, using frameworks of political thought and intellectual history. Developing such a framework is essential to achieving a more comprehensive theoretical and historical understanding of Israel’s political and party system as a whole.

The analysis of crises and states of emergency is inherently interdisciplinary, drawing together political theory, legal theory, and leadership studies. Israel provides a particularly rich site for this inquiry, as its political history is marked by an unusual density and variety of crises. Examining Israel through a theoretically informed lens offers a unique vantage point for generating broader insights into how crises shape governance, institutional authority, and state–society relations.

My research in this field began during my postdoctoral fellowship at the Minerva Center for the Rule of Law under Extreme Conditions at the University of Haifa, where I explored the intersection between political and legal theories of emergency and their translation into legislative and political practice. The first articulation of this framework appeared in “Political Violence, Political Ends: The Story of the Zealots Underground” (Journal of Israeli History), which reconstructs the history of Brit HaKana’im, a 1950s underground organization whose violent actions culminated in an attempted bombing of the Knesset. The article situates this episode within postwar global debates on political violence, identifying it as the first Israeli case in which religious and nationalist ideologies coalesced to motivate political violence.

 

The intersection of political theory and policy in emergency contexts became even more salient during the COVID-19 pandemic, which I examined in “New Tools for an Old Problem? Politicization of States of Emergency in Light of the Global Coronavirus Crisis” (University of Haifa Law Review). Drawing on Carl Schmitt’s theory of emergency powers, the article analyzes two controversial Israeli decisions—the Knesset Speaker’s suspension of parliamentary activity and government restrictions on demonstrations—arguing that the Israeli case offers a paradigmatic illustration of Schmitt’s account of emergency powers.

 

The theoretical and empirical intersections of emergencies and leadership are further developed in my recent article “Framing an Unfolding Crisis: Leadership and Accountability in Times of National Crisis” (Israel Studies). This study offers a theory-driven account of crisis leadership by distinguishing between accountability and “blame game” dynamics, and by tracing the pathways through which narrative framing shapes political outcomes, public legitimacy, and post-crisis governance.

My work on regulatory history examines the legal and political regulation of the housing and rental market. This interdisciplinary field lies at the intersection of legal, political, economic, and social history and has long served as a major arena of public policy in Western societies. My research contributes to this literature by situating the Israeli case within broader transnational and comparative histories of rent control and state intervention.

I first engaged with this field in my M.A. thesis, which analyzed two foundational regulatory regimes in Israel’s formative years—housing and basic food supplies. The research demonstrated that regulatory policy emerged from a complex configuration of ideological imperatives and material constraints, including nation-building, distributive justice, and the management of severe economic crisis.

My article “Just Ring Twice: Law and Society under the Rent Control Regime in Israel, 1948–1954” (Journal of Israeli History) was the first historical study of Israel’s rent control regime and was awarded the Cegla Prize for Outstanding Article (2014). It demonstrated how regulatory structures shaped social and economic relations among different groups.

A subsequent study, “An Institutional Historiography of the Rent Tribunals, 1910–1954” (Law, Society and Culture, Tel-Aviv University), traced the institutional and legal origins of rent control in Palestine back to the late Ottoman period, situating its emergence within global processes of wartime regulation and postwar reconstruction. I later extended this project in “Fostering Community Impact through Social Capital: Rent Control Policy in Palestine and Israel Amid Crises and Transitions” (Societies), which theorized the Israeli case through the analytical framework of social capital.

Together, these studies constitute the first comprehensive historiography of rent control in Israel, situating the Israeli case within broader global history.