People
Theodore Sasson, PhD 
Senior Research Scientist
Theodore Sasson is Senior Research Scientist at the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies and the Steinhardt Social Research Institute, Brandeis University. He is also Professor of International Studies at Middlebury College, and Visiting Research Professor, Sociology Department, Brandeis University.
Author of books and scholarly articles in the fields of political sociology and criminology, Professor Sasson's current work examines Israeli political culture and Israel-Diaspora relations. His recent articles include: "Framing Religious Conflict: Popular Israeli Discourse on Religion and State" (with Ephraim Tabory, Journal of Church and State, fall 2010); "Trends in American Jewish Attachment to Israel: an Assessment of the ‘Distancing' Hypothesis (with Charles Kadushin and Leonard Saxe, Contemporary Jewry, fall 2010); "From Mass Mobilization to Direct Engagement: The Changing Relationship of American Jews to Israel" (Israel Studies, summer 2010); and "Converging Political Cultures: How Globalization is Shaping the Discourses of Israeli and American Jews" (with Ephraim Tabory, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, winter 2010).
Professor Sasson serves as co-principal investigator of evaluation research for the educational program Taglit-Birthright Israel, and as co-principal investigator for the Jewish Futures Project, a longitudinal study of Jewish young adults. He is Chair of the Association for Jewish Studies (AJS) division for social science, anthropology and folklore; Secretary of the Association for the Social Scientific Study of Jewry (ASSJ); and Board Member of the Association of Israel Studies (AIS).
Recently published:
with Benjamin Phillips, Graham Wright, Charles Kadushin and Leonard Saxe, Understanding Young Adult Attachment to Israel: Period, Lifecycle and Generational Dynamics (Contemporary Jewry, vol. 32, no. 1, 67-84, 2012)
(2011). A Jewish and Democratic State? How American Jews Discuss Israel’s Identity Dilemma. In S. M. Cohen, H. Goldberg & E. Kopelowitz (Eds.), Dynamic Belonging: Collective Identity in Israel and the United States. New York: Berghahn Books.
with David Mittelberg, Shahar Hecht, and Leonard Saxe, Guest-Host Encounters in Diaspora-Heritage Tourism: The Taglit-Birthright Israel Mifgash (Encounter) (Diaspora, Indigenous, and Minority Education, Volume 5, Issue 3, 2011)
with Ephraim Tabory and Dana Selinger-Abutbul, Framing Religious Conflict: Popular Israeli Discourse on Religion and State (Journal of Church and State, Sept 2010)
Mass Mobilization to Direct Engagement: American Jews’ Changing Relationship to Israel (Israel Studies, summer 2010)
with Ephraim Tabory, Converging Political Cultures: How Globalization is Shaping the Discourses of American and Israeli Jews (Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, vol. 16, issue 1, 2010)