Association for Israel Studies

AIS is chartered in the United States. Its current leadership includes Csaba Nikolenyi of Concordia University as president, Oded Haklai of Queen's University as vice president, and Asaf J. Shamis of the University of Haifa as executive director.[1] The association also maintains an Academic Freedom Committee chaired by Asa Kasher and a Women's Caucus that functions as a forum during the annual conference.[1]

Individual membership is open to people engaged in, or interested in, scholarly inquiry about the State of Israel, the Zionist movement, the Yishuv, and pre-state Palestine.[2] The association also maintains institutional membership for academic centers and programs.[3] Individual categories cover faculty, retirees, independent scholars, and students, with current one-year rates of $150 for faculty, $90 for retirees and independent scholars, and $50 for students; lifetime membership is listed at $1,250.[3] Membership fees support scholarly activities, including grants and fellowships for students and established researchers.[3]

Reported membership stands at a few hundred scholars.[4] The institutional membership roster includes Israel-studies centers and programs at Brandeis University, Concordia University, Michigan State University, the University of Haifa, American University, Bar-Ilan University, Ben-Gurion University, Brown University, New York University, UCLA, the University of Maryland, the University of Oklahoma, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Wisconsin–Madison, UC Berkeley, the University of Nebraska–Omaha, and the University of Arizona.[3]

On the organisational landscape of North American academic associations, AIS sponsors panels at meetings of the International Studies Association and the American Political Science Association.[2] Since 2016, it has been an affiliated member organisation of both the American Historical Association and the Association for Jewish Studies, with formal authorisation to organise panels and workshops at the AHA annual conference.[2] These affiliations place Israel studies within the broader currents of historical and Jewish scholarship rather than confining it to a single disciplinary home.

Israel studies as a formal academic discipline grew out of a loose network of researchers active in the mid-1980s, initially drawn largely from political science and concentrated on questions surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.[4] As scholarly interest broadened, professors formalised their collaboration by founding the Association for Israel Studies in 1985, after which the membership expanded into subjects including Israeli foreign policy, religion, Jewish and Arab literature, and the kibbutz movement.[4] The field subsequently developed the institutional infrastructure characteristic of an established discipline: a peer-reviewed academic journal, named award programs, and formal ties with Israeli universities and research institutions.[4]

The association describes itself as committed to academic freedom and freedom of expression, a commitment it regards as foundational given the politically and historically contested nature of several subjects within its stated scope.[2] From its inception, AIS has embraced an interdisciplinary rather than a single-methodology approach, reflecting the view that modern Israel as a subject of inquiry benefits from simultaneous examination through the social sciences, history, and the humanities.[2]

AIS membership carries a defined set of scholarly and professional benefits. Members receive full online access to three new issues of Israel Studies Review per year, year-long access to previous online issues, and access to the journal's complete digitised archive on JSTOR.[3] Additional benefits include delivery of the AIS newsletter, voting rights at the General Assembly, a 25-percent discount on Berghahn Books publications, eligibility for association awards and grants, opportunities to advertise books through AIS channels, and use of the AIS listserv.[3]

Israel Studies Review (ISR) is the interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal of the Association for Israel Studies and is provided free to members.[5] It examines modern and contemporary Israel through the social sciences, history, humanities, and cultural studies. It also addresses Israel's relationships with the Middle East and the wider world when the primary focus remains on modern Israel, and one of its central functions is reviewing recent books on Israel-related themes published in English and Hebrew.[5]

The journal's editors are Oded Haklai and Adia Mendelson-Maoz.[5] ISR describes itself as a non-partisan publication committed to scholarship of the highest quality, explicitly acknowledging the passions and controversies that characterise the field.[5]

The journal has appeared under several titles in its history. The National Library of Israel catalogs it as an English-language periodical published in Philadelphia by the Association for Israel Studies, with records running from 2001 onward.[6] The catalog notes that the publication was titled Israel Studies Forum from 2001 to 2010 and Israel Studies Review from 2011 to 2015, and that it continues Israel Studies Bulletin.[6] The journal is described as semiannual in that catalog, while AIS's membership page specifies three new issues per year.[3]

AIS convenes an annual international conference, rotating among host institutions in Israel, North America, and Europe. Recent meetings have reflected wide thematic and geographic range: the 2025 conference, held at the University of Haifa, carried the theme "Israel and the International Community: Challenges and Prospects"; the 2024 conference took place at Charles University in Prague under the theme "Israel and Israel Studies: The European and International Perspective"; the 2023 conference was hosted at New York University under the title "Israel at 75: Archives, History and Society"; and the 2022 conference at Bar-Ilan University addressed "Israel: Conflicts and Mobility in a Diverse Society."[7] Earlier meetings included a 2021 conference focused on women, minorities, and diversity held at the University of Illinois, and a 2019 conference titled "Images and Realities: Land of Promise to Startup Nation?"[7]

The 42nd AIS Conference is scheduled at Ramat Gan Academic College with the theme "Security, Rehabilitation and Healing – What's Next?" and is planned to include panels, roundtables, workshops, individual papers, and posters.[8] The association's conference pages display both July 27–29, 2026, and October 19–21, 2026, for this event, with the detailed conference page and archive heading identifying the later dates as the current schedule.[8]

AIS administers a broad program of awards and financial support designed to recognise achievement and foster scholarship across career stages, from doctoral students to senior scholars.

The Lifetime Achievement Award honours a senior scholar in any field of Israel studies whose lasting and path-breaking contributions have significantly shaped the discipline. Evaluation criteria encompass scholarship, mentorship, service to the field, and contributions to the development of Israel studies institutions. The prize carries a value of $7,000; nominees must be AIS members, and self-nominations are not accepted.[9]

The Gad Barzilai Early Career Award recognises an exceptional scholar who has made significant contributions to Israel studies earlier in their career.[10] The Shapiro Award for Best Book in Israel Studies honours the most distinguished scholarly book published in the field, while the Ben Halpern Award for Best Dissertation recognises the best doctoral dissertation.[10] The Kimmerling Award, named in honour of the late scholar Baruch Kimmerling, is given for the best paper presented by a graduate student at the AIS annual meeting; the winning paper may subsequently be published in Israel Studies Review following acceptable revisions, and submissions must not have been previously published in English or submitted to another international journal.[11] The listed prize is $1,000.[11]

The Dissertation Completion Fellowship supports outstanding doctoral students in any field of Israel studies during the final stages of dissertation writing. One fellowship of $1,500 is offered annually for a single year, with the recipient selected by a committee of AIS-member scholars.[12] Applicants may study at universities in any country, must have achieved ABD status, completed an approved prospectus and the required draft work, and hold current AIS membership; dissertations may be written in English or Hebrew.[12]

The fellowship application requires a cover letter explaining the research purpose, methodology, findings, and contribution to the field; a dissertation chapter; a bibliography; a completion timeline; three letters of recommendation; a professional CV and publication list; and status confirmation from a department chair or graduate-studies director.[13] For the 2024 competition cycle, the awardee was Mordy Miller, whose dissertation examines interactions between Kabbalah and political ideologies among Jewish Orthodoxy in Israel in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries; Leehee Rothschild received an honourable mention for a dissertation on Israeli polyamorous and queer families, including living arrangements, child rearing, and law.[13]

In addition to these named awards and the dissertation fellowship, AIS offers travel grants to assist eligible scholars in attending the annual meeting.[10]

As an international scholarly society dedicated specifically to the academic study of modern Israel, AIS occupies a distinctive position in the landscape of area-studies organisations. Its interdisciplinary composition — spanning political science, sociology, history, economics, business, literature, and cultural studies — enables integrated examination of modern Israeli society.[4] Csaba Nikolenyi has characterised AIS membership as "robust, plural, and diverse," encompassing scholars of history, sociology, economics, and business, and has described Israel studies as "multi- and interdisciplinary by definition."[4]

The association's institutional affiliations with the American Historical Association and the Association for Jewish Studies since 2016, combined with panel sponsorship at the International Studies Association and the American Political Science Association, extend the reach of Israel studies across several major scholarly communities.[2] Its institutional membership rolls, which include research universities in the United States, Israel, and Canada, reflect the association's international scope.[3]

Through Israel Studies Review and annual conferences with rotating international hosts, AIS creates venues for peer-reviewed publication and scholarly exchange.[5][7] Its fellowship and awards programs provide support and recognition from the dissertation stage through lifetime achievement.[10] Together, these activities provide professional networks and institutional outlets for research on modern Israel, the Zionist movement, and the Yishuv.

Israel studies, like many area-studies disciplines, has attracted debate about its methodological coherence, institutional health, and future direction. A Jewish People Policy Institute report, as described by The Times of Israel, characterised the field as being "at the brink of extinction" and suffering from a "profound identity crisis," criticising it for lacking agreed aims, methodologies, and curriculum. The reported assessment alleged that the 2024 Prague conference did not adequately address its stated theme, although The Times of Israel did not explicitly identify that event as an AIS conference, and criticised certain awards as being based on "vague and opaque criteria."[4]

Csaba Nikolenyi, then identified as an AIS vice president, disputed this characterisation. He argued that Israel studies remained healthy because of its pluralism, diverse membership, active member engagement, and sustained student interest, and he rejected the premise that the field should be reorganised along the lines of a conventional single-methodology discipline such as economics.[4] He concluded that there was "a very strong challenge, but not a crisis."[4] Israel Studies Review itself acknowledges the passions and controversies present in the field while maintaining its commitment to non-partisan, high-quality scholarship.[5]