Intra-Religious Disputes and Divisions
Yishai Deitcher
Yishai Deitcher received his PhD from the Department of Jewish Thought at Ben Gurion University. His dissertation examined the "analog paradigm" in the thought of Nahmanides (Ramban), highlighting the structural role of analogy in his writings. As a postdoctoral fellow at CSoC, his current research investigates covert critiques of Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed embedded in Nahmanides’ work. This subtle polemic is analyzed in light of Nahmanides’ role as a conciliatory figure during the Maimonidean Controversy of 1232. Yishai also holds an MA in clinical psychology (rehabilitation track) from Bar Ilan University.
Melissa Elbaz
Melissa Elbaz is a social Anthropologist trained at the School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences (EHESS) of Paris. Her research explores processes of identity formation and community building in a globalized world, focusing on the interplay between transnational spiritual networks, migration flows, and national narratives. After a decade of fieldwork in Mexico, she shifted her attention to the growing wave of Latin Americans undergoing official conversion in Israel, and becoming Israeli citizens. Her research examines the role played by the internet in shaping their spiritual journeys, as well as their economic, social, legal, and political positions within Israeli society, and their evolving relationship with the Christian world. Specifically, her work investigates whether Latin American conversions to Judaism are the outcome of internal divisions within Christianity, and how the converts’ Christian backgrounds inform and persist within their Jewish paths.
Yehonatan Hershberg
Yehonatan Hershberg is currently writing his doctoral dissertation at the Ben-Gurion Research Institute for the Study of Israel and Zionism. His work, situated at the intersection of history, anthropology, and geography, explores the cultural and symbolic construction of sacred national mountains within the Zionist ethos. He examines how the national space of Eretz-Israel was shaped through the interplay between sanctity, landscape, and national identity, with a focus on the Zionist reinterpretation of Jewish tradition and its cultural and symbolic expressions in the national landscape. His current research investigates the processes by which Mount Tabor was sacralized in Zionist thought, through its encounter with both Jewish and Christian traditions.
Efrat Lederfein-Gilboa
Efrat Lederfein-Gilboa is a doctoral student at Ben-Gurion University, writing under the supervision of Pro. Jonatan Meir. Her doctoral work focuses on the intellectual and social history among Sabbatean believers in northern Italy during the years following the deaths of Sabbatai Sevi and Nathan of Gaza, particularly in circles developed around Abraham Rovigo and Benjamin haCohen Vitali. Efrat is a recipient of the Rotenstreich Scholarship, and her doctoral research proposal earned her a commendation in the Shazar Prize for Jewish Studies.
Violeta Riechman
Violeta Riechman is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Arts at Ben-Gurion University of Negev, under the supervision of Prof. Sara Offenberg. Her research focuses on two Hebrew Bible manuscripts from the thirteenth century in Ashkenaz, copied by the same copyist and sharing common characteristics, which form the foundation for her comparative analysis. Through this research, she examines the interrelationships between the written and visual text, exploring the role of decorations and cultural context. She is the recipient of the Natan Rotenstreich (Vatat) scholarship for 2023-2026. Her article: "First Encounter: The Exposure and Review of Ms. Heb. 8°7087 from the collection of the National Library, Jerusalem" was published in Mabatim: Journal of Visual Culture, Vol. 2, 2023.
Nikita Wolkenstein
Nikita Wolkenstein is a historian-philologist of Arabic, Hebrew, and other Semitic tongues (Moscow U., BA ’15; PhD ’20). He examines how "marginal" scholars negotiated power in the early-modern Ottoman world. Three puzzles guide his work: "invisible colleges" that thrived outside state madrasas; polemical fault-lines where jurists and Sufis contested religious innovations; and network prosopography charting the flow of texts, teachers, and patrons across Damascus, Cairo, and Medina. Awards include Moscow U.’s top BA thesis (2015), the Russian Academy of Diplomacy MA prize (2017), a three-year Research Fellowship at the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Moscow U. Scholarship for Young Scholars (2020).
