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Post-Doctoral Fellows

Emily McKee
2012-2013
Anthropology Department
ekmckee@brandeis.edu

Emily McKee is a post-doctoral fellow at the Schusterman Center for 2012-2013. She completed her doctoral degree in Anthropology at the University of Michigan. Her research on land conflict and socio-environmental movements in Israel explores the drawing and policing of group boundaries, experiences of agriculture and urbanization, and environmental sustainability activism.  Her dissertation examines how differently situated residents of the Negev/Naqab region of Israel claim land through deeds and words. Jewish and Bedouin Arab citizens and governmental bodies vie over access to land for farming and homes and over the status of unrecognized Bedouin villages. To understand the vehemence of these struggles and place them within wider regional conflicts, she investigates environmental discourses and practices from a political dwelling perspective. She will be coming to Brandeis from Yale University, Department of Anthropology and Council on Middle East Studies, where she served as a post doctoral associate. At Brandeis she will be teaching a course entitled "Peoples and Societies of the Middle East."

Sara Yael Hirschhorn
2012-2013

Sara Hirschhorn is a post-doctoral fellow at the Schusterman Center. She recently earned her doctorate in History (Middle East) at the University of Chicago, where she wrote her dissertation entitled “City on a Hilltop: The participation of Jewish-American Immigrants within the Israeli Settler Movement, 1967-1987.”  Sara has been a University of Chicago Century fellow (2006-2012) and a Bessie Pierce Prize preceptor (2010-2012) and won the University of Chicago Kunstadter and Janco Research-Travel awards (summers 2010 and 2011).  She was also an AICE-Schusterman Graduate Student Israel scholar (2008-2012), and was a recipient of the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad (DDRA) fellowship (2008-2009). Apart from her studies, she has served as a research assistant for chief U.S. negotiator Ambassador Dennis Ross and several faculty members at Yale and the University of Chicago, and continues to be involved in academic teaching and public education related to Israel and the Middle East.

Michal Ben-Josef Hirsch
2009-2012
Politics Department and Heller School
michalbj@brandeis.edu

Michal Ben-Josef Hirsch is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Schusterman Center of Israel Studies. She is also an Associate at the International Security Program, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University. Michal holds a PhD in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a B.A (magna cum laude) in Political Science from Tel Aviv University. Her dissertation, titled: And the Truth Shall Make You Free: The International Norm of Truth-Seeking, develops a theory for the emergence and spreading of international norms in order to explain the worldwide prevalence of truth and reconciliation commissions. Michal is currently working on two research projects. In her first project, she evaluates the scope and political implications of the ideational and political alliance between the American Christian Right and the State of Israel. Her second project builds on her dissertation and evaluates the feasibility of introducing symbolic reparations into the negotiations over the Palestinian refugee issue. At Brandeis, Michal is a Visiting Lecturer, where she teaches a course in 2011-12 on transitional justice and the Israel-Palestinian conflict. She has also taught courses on the US-Israel relationship and nuclear proliferation in the Middle East.

Yuval Jobani
2010-2011
Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies

Yuval Jobani was a post-doctoral fellow with the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies for the academic year 2010-2011. He came to Brandeis from the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton where he was a Fulbright Postdoctoral Fellow under the supervision of Prof. Michael Walzer. Jobani received his Ph.D. (summa cum laude) from Tel-Aviv University in Philosophy. His recent publications include: "Three Basic Models of Secular Jewish Culture", Israel Studies 13.3 (2008); "The Political Theology of the Ancient Hebrew State according to Spinoza", Zmanim: A Historical Quarterly 103 (2008) [Hebrew]. Forthcoming, Spinoza's Emendation of Religion: On the Status of Contradiction in the Concept of God; and "On scholars and soldiers", The Jewish Political Tradition (Vol.3), Michael Walzer, Menachem Lorberbaum and Noam Zohar (eds.) Yale University Press. At Brandeis, Yuval taught courses on Jewish secularism and Jewish political thought.

Mordechai (Motti) Inbari
2008-2009
Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies

The Schusterman Center's first postdoctoral fellow, Mordechai (Motti) Inbari, focuses his research on Jewish fundamentalism in Israel. His book Jewish Fundamentalism and the Temple Mount: Who Will Build the Third Temple? has been published in English (SUNY Press, 2009. [H: 2008, Magnes Press]). He earned his PhD at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and wrote his dissertation on King, Sanhedrin and Temple: Contemporary Movements Seeking to Establish a 'Torah State' and Rebuild the Third Temple 1984-2004. Prior to his fellowship at Brandeis, Inbari served as the Schusterman Visiting Assistant Professor for Israel Studies at the University of Florida.