Current Scholars
The HBI scholar in residence program offers distinguished scholars, writers and communal professionals the opportunity to produce significant work in the area of Jewish studies and gender issues while being freed from their regular institutional responsibilities. Scholars in Residence contribute to the life of HBI by immersing in the institute’s weekly activities, participating in HBI conferences and programs, and delivering a public lecture.
2025-2026
Dotan Brom
"The Lesbian Feminists Are The Bridge": Anglo-American Feminists and the Rise of Lesbian Activism in Israel (1971-1987)
Dotan Brom is a PhD candidate at Tel Aviv University's School of Historical Studies. His research focuses on Israeli queer history: his MA thesis at the University of Haifa dealt with the history of homosexuality in the kibbutz. His dissertation, concerned with Haifa's queer past, originated in the Haifa Queer History Project, a local queer community archive and oral history project, co-founded by Brom in 2015. The HQHP also organizes the annual Haifa Queer History Festival which included Israel's first museum exhibition on queer history, in collaboration with the Haifa City Museum, co-curated by Brom. He is a tour guide focusing on local social, political, and cultural histories, and the current co-creator of the Hebrew podcast, Toldot HaMiniyut ("The History of Sexuality"), focusing on queer history, politics, and culture.
At HBI, Brom will explore U.S.-based archival collections, including the work of Marcia Freedman, an American Jewish woman who immigrated to Israel after the 1967 war and became one of the pivotal figures of second-wave feminism, and whose papers are housed in Brandeis University’s Jewish Feminism Collections. Brom will additionally consult materials at the Lesbian Herstory Archives and the LGBT Community Center National History Archive in New York City.