Global Humanities Junior Fellow at Freie Universitaet Berlin

July - October 2015

From the Center to the Periphery: Central European Jewish Scholars and the Research of Oriental Jews in Israel

This project examines the influence of Israeli scholars on the absorption and integration processes of Jewish Oriental (“Mizrachi”) immigrants to Israel of the 1950s. The geographical and intellectual origins of these scholars, many of whom were raised or scientifically trained in Central Europe, will stand at the focal point of the project, which will employ the analytical framework of knowledge and cultural transfer. The focus on scholars in the process of Israeli nation-building offers a new perspective on the ethnic rift between the groups which came to be known as “Ashkenazi” and “Mizrachi” Jews.

Adi Livny is a PhD candidate at the Department of Jewish History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 2013 she completed her Master’s degree in Political Science with a thesis titled: “Conscientious Objection and the State: between Confrontation and Recognition,” a comparative research of Israel, Germany and Switzerland, written under the guidance of Prof. Yfaat Weiss and Dr. Iddo Nevo. Her research interests include the history of Israel and Zionism, comparative historical sociology and the history of ideas.