Aug 31
The Jewish World in Israel
Chicago, Illinois
Region
Presentation
Date
12:00 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.
Location
RSVP
R.S.V.P. by Monday, August 28, 2017 to
847-983-3630 or [email protected].
Prof. Ofer Shiff is a professor of Jewish history at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, where he served as director of the Ben-Gurion Research Institute for the Study of Israel and Zionism from 2001 to 2004. He also served as the head of the Israel Studies Program and currently serves as the co-editor of the Hebrew periodical Iyunim Bitkumat Israel (studies in Israeli and modern Jewish society). In addition, he is the head of the Ben-Gurion Institute University Press.
Prof. Shiff’s main research interest is the understanding of the complex relations between Homeland and Diaspora. Until recently, the focus of his research was on aspects of the American-Jewish copings with Israel and various related issues such as Zionism, Jewish sovereignty, Aliya, Holocaust consciousness, negation of Galut and the quest for a “new Jew”. The current emphasis of his research is on the Israeli side of the Homeland-Diaspora equation. He currently leads a research group that focuses on the challenges posed by the Jewish world as they are perceived in different periods and by various social, cultural and political groups within Israeli society. His most recent publications in this area were two volumes in Hebrew, which he edited, on Homeland and Diaspora relations (“Homeland in Exile” and “Israeli Exiles”).