Curriculum Vitae

CURRICULUM VITAE

Updated: November 2011

Date of Birth: 28.11.65

Country of Birth: Israel

Nationality: Israeli

Marital status: married

Full Military Service: 1984-86

Permanent address: 31 Bustenai St., Jerusalem 93229

Tel.: 02-5355059 (home); 02-5883552 (office)

E-mail address: yaronbn@huji.ac.il

(in chronological order) - At the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem

1987-1989: B.A. (magna cum laude) in Archeology, and Jewish History.

1990-1992: M.A. (magna cum laude) in Jewish History, specializing in Ottoman Jewry.

1993-1999: Doctoral thesis, under the guidance of Prof. J.R. Hacker, titled:

'The Jewish Society in the Urban Centers of the Ottoman Empire in the 17th Century (Istanbul, Salonica & Izmir)'.

1995/6: Studied Modern & Ottoman Turkish at Bosphoros (Boğazici) University, Istanbul, and Ottoman History at Bilkent University, Ankara.

2000: Approval of Doctoral Thesis 'summa cum laude'.

2002/3-2005/6: Post-doctoral fellowship as a Mandel Scholar, Scholion Interdisciplinary Center, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

3. APPOINTMENTS AT THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY

(in chronological order)

October 1997– July 2001: Lecturer, History of the Jewish People Dept., The Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

March 2002 – July 2002: Adjunct teacher

October 1^st – September 30^th 2005: Adjunct lecturer, and a Scholion scholar

October 1^st 2005: Appointed as lecturer lecturer in the department of History of the Jewish People.

January 15th 2007: Appointed Senior lecturer in the department of History of the Jewish People and Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

4. ADDITIONAL FUNCTIONS/TASKS AT THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY

(in chronological order)

* 1996-2000: consultant for BA students.

* 2002-2010: Coordinator of the bibliographic courses in my department.

*since October 2008: Director, Misgav Yerushalayim, Center for Research and Study of Sephardi and Oriental Jewish Heritage, at the Hebrew University.

*January-June 2010: Member of the scholarship and prizes committee of the Mandel Institute for Jewish Studies.

*Since June 2010: Member of the doctoral committee of the History School.

*Since October 2011: Chairman, Faculty of Humanities' Library Committee.

*Since October 2011: Member of the departmental Prizes Committee.

*Participating in the team of the 'Abrahamic Religions' i-core project .

5. SERVICE IN OTHER ACADEMIC AND RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

(in chronological order)

1990-1999: Researcher at the Ben-Zvi Institute for the Study of the Jewish Communities in the East (Jerusalem), and in a research project of the Institute of Jewish Studies, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

2000-2002: Lecturer in the History of the Jewish People and Eretz-Israel Studies Department, Tel Aviv University.

2007: Visiting scholar for the spring semester at the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, Penn University, Philadelphia.

6. OTHER ACTIVITY

(in chronological order)

* Since 1990: Lecturing on Ottoman Jewry before different audiences.

* Since 2000: Lector and reviewer of (manuscript) articles for various Israeli and international periodicals and jubilee books, dissertations; evaluating research proposals for the ISF.

* June 2004: Member of the organization committee of an international conference 'The Turks and Palestine: A 1000 Years of Relations', the Hebrew University & Yad Yitzhak Ben Zvi, Jerusalem.

* 2002-2007: Participation in conducting a four-year (in fact, five) research project, headed by Prof. J.R. Hacker, and sponsored by the Israel Science Foundation (ISF): 'The Communal Ordinances of the Ottoman Jews, 15^th-19^th Centuries: A Reconstruction'. This is a sequel of a project on the printed sources (conducted: 1990-1997), which is about to appear in press.

* 2007-2111: Conducting a four-year research funded by ISF, titled 'The Sassoon Family: Jewish Plutocrats between East and West in an age of Transition'.

* Since 2008: Member of the Sam Toleadano Prize committee.

* Since 2011: 'Reader' - Evaluator of doctoral and fellowship applications for the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, New York.

7. MEMBERSHIP IN A PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATION

(in chronological order)

* 2006-2007: Member in the forum of 'Young Scholars', in the Humanities and Social Sciences), the Israeli National Academy, Jerusalem

* Since 2007: Member of the Israeli Historical Society

* Since 2007: Member of the World Union of Jewish Studies

* Since 2009: Member of the Middle East & Islamic Studies Association of Israel (MEISAI)

* Since 2010: Member of the Society for Sephardic Studies

*Since 2011: Member of the AJS (Association for Jewish Studies. USA)

8. PRIZES & RESEARCH GRANTS

(in chronological order)

1989: Dean's Prize, Hattman Prize, The Faculty of Humanities, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

1990: Hefetz Prize, the Hebrew University (Jerusalem).

1991-1992: Grant from the Oriental Jewish Heritage Center, Ministry of Education

1990-1993: Living stipends from the Institute of Jewish Studies of the Hebrew University (Jerusalem)

1993: Ashtor Prize, Galbar Prize, Asseo Foundation Prize,

Sephardi Federation (WZO) Grant

1994/5: Memorial Foundation - Mark Uveeler Doctoral Scholarship; SEC Grant

1994/5-1996/7: Rotenstreich living stipend

1995/6: Sephardi Federation (WZO) Grant

1996/7: A Memorial Foundation Scholarship, SEC Grant

1998-1999: Elyashar Fellowship in the Ben-Zvi Institute for the Study of the Jewish Communities in the East (Jerusalem).

2000/1: Warburg Prize, the Institute of Jewish Studies of the Hebrew University (Jerusalem).

2001: Ephraim Urbach Post-Doctoral Fellowship, the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture (New York).

2002/3-2004/5: Mandel Post-Doctoral Scholar, Scholion Center, Mandel Institute for Jewish Studies, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

2005/6: A Golda Meir Fellow, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

May 2005: Granted financial support ($1,500) from the Faculty of Humanities, for the preparation for publication of a jointly-authored volume 'The Communal Ordinances of the Jews in the Ottoman Empire'.

* November 2006: A one-year personal research grant ($10,000) from the Israel Science Foundation (ISF).

* February 2007: A Grant (3500$) from the Faculty of Humanities research fund, for a research on the Sassoon Family. (this adds to a former 12,000$ grant for the same purpose).

* April 2007: Awarded the President Yitzhak Ben Zvi Prize for my book: 'Jews in the Realm f the Sultans' (Hebrew version).

* October 2007: A four-year personal research grant ($100,000) from the Israel Science Foundation (ISF). The subject: 'The Sassoon Family: Jewish Plutocrats between East and West in an age of Transition'.(no. 1157/06)

* December 2007: Granted financial support (2000$) from the Faculty of Humanities for the preparation for publication of a jointly-authored volume “Everyday Life realities in The Haskӧy Quarter of 17^th Century Istanbul". This project received later financial aid from Misgav Yerushalayim.

* August 2008: A Grant (8,000$) from the Ben-Barukh Fund, for a research on Jews' Wills from the Ottoman Empire.

* February 2009: A Grant (5,000$) from the Ben-Barukh Fund, for a research on the Haskӧy quarter, Istanbul.

* October 2011: Awarded the Arnold Wiznitzer Prize for my book: 'Jews in the Realm f the Sultans' (Hebrew version. 25,000 shekels).

9. TEACHING AT THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY

A. Supervision of master and doctoral degree students in the last five years

Master's degree students: since 2005: instructor and tutor of the following:

Co-superviser: Prof. Richard Cohen. (concluded. 85)

Doctoral degree students: (since 2009/10):

There are informal connections between myself and PhD students and scholars from various universities in Turkey and the US who are seeking advise, information, co-operation etc. Some arrive through the Rothberg overseas school. To mention just three examples: Shaun Halper (Berkeley University), Rami Regavim (Penn University), Tomer Levi, Avner Wishnitzer (Lady Davis fellowship), Yasin Meral, and Doc. Dr. (Ass. Prof.) Nuh Arslantaş from Marmara University, Istanbul.

B. Post-doctoral Visitors

Dr. Arturo Marzano, Pisa/Rome

Dr. Richard Wittmann, Orient Institut, Istanbul

Prof. Nuh Arslantaş, Marmara University, Istanbul

C. Courses taught in the last 5 years

2006: ‘A Land as all Lands’ – Jews in Ottoman Palestine; Assorted Topics in Communal and Individual Lives of the Jews under Islam

2007: ’Sabbatean Matters’: The Sabbatean Movement and its Aftermath; Women, Men & Children: Jewish Family in the Ottoman Empire

2008: ‘Galut ba-Aretz’: Eretz Israel Jews in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries; Individual, Family and Community under Islam

2009: Holy Safed and Profane Safed: The Safed Jewish Community in the Sixteenth Century; Issues in the History of Jewish Communities under Islam in the Nineteenth Century

2010: Eretz Israel Jews in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, Jewish Family in the Islamic World in the early modern period

2011: Jewish Life in Late Ottoman Palestine,

2012: Palestinian Jewry under the Mameluks and the Ottomans, Ottoman Jewry

2006: Family and Family Life in Ottoman Jewish Communities

2008: Port Jews and Court Jews in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

2009: The Hida’s Diary (‘Ma’agal Tov ha-Shalem’) as a Mirror for the Jewish World in the Eighteenth Century

2010: Bibliographic Travels: Jewish Society and Culture in the Early Modern Mediterranean.

2011: Modernization Processes in the Jewish Communities under Islam

2012: Family and Family Life in Ottoman Jewish Communities

Academic Biography

My PhD thesis and the book that emanated from it deal with Jewish society in the larger metropolitan centers of the Ottoman Empire during the seventeenth century, a formative period in its history. My attention focused on the communities in three central cities: Istanbul, Salonica, and Izmir, which together accounted for the vast majority of Ottoman Jewry. The main topics that were discussed were: the legal and social status of individuals and the community; organizational structure and operation of the congregations and the urban community; institutions of the congregation (kahal) and its leadership; social, economic and cultural characteristics of Ottoman Jewry. My research provided, for the first time, a comprehensive description and analysis of this Jewry in that period. It also laid the foundations for further study of this community.

In the following years I published several articles which to some degree deal more extensively with topics discussed in relatively narrower context in the thesis and the book. These include, among others: inter-communal relations; self-government; charitable and philanthropic institutions; poverty and its treatment by the community. The period covered in my articles stretches from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, at which time significant changes took place in the area under Ottoman rule.

I gradually came to realize that what most interested me was social and cultural history. The theme of acculturation and interaction with the majority society became clearer, and is a subject which I believe can provide important new insights about Jewish life under Islam.

Since 2000 and during my post-doctoral years at the 'Scholion' Interdisciplinary Research Center my research focused on social, cultural, and mental aspects of Ottoman Jewish society. I availed myself of interdisciplinary approaches (e.g. gender studies), as had already been done in the study of European societies and to some degree also of Jewish communities in Europe. Despite the fact that these approaches are central to contemporary historical research, they are almost completely lacking in Ottoman Studies, and even more so in research on Ottoman Jewry. Studies written in the past decade have opened up fresh avenues of research and made it possible to raise new questions and examine mutual inter-societal influences.

Later publications have veered away from the topics dealt with in my thesis, relating to issues having diverse geographical and chronological frameworks. The subjects of some of my recent articles,for example, were slaveholding which bears some new and important insights, the consumption of luxury goods, and recreational patterns of Jewish women in Ottoman Jerusalem. These articles are the materials out of which I intend to construct a wider monograph on Ottoman Jews at the beginning of the modern age. Among the topics with which I have dealt or am engaged in studying at the moment are the family, gender and sexual practices, delinquency and social surveillance, folk beliefs, conceptions of honor and shame, and more. I have for some time been engaged in preparing and studying a corpus of dozens of wills and testaments left by old and young men and women from among Ottoman Jewry. To all these I apply my basic assumption concerning the great and multi-faceted influence of the wider urban culture, particularly that of Ottoman Islamic society, upon Jewish society and its culture.

I am constantly seeking out additional written sources and intend to publish them, so as to make them available to a wider audience. Besides the Shari’a court records from Istanbul which are about to be published, There are few Hebrew sources that will be published (see future plans). I find the publication of unknown important sources an appropriate venue, and even a desirable task, as less people tend to read sources, especially if these are manuscripts in non European languages. It might be a corpus of letters, a collection of communal regulations (such as that of the Edirne community in the 18^th-19^th centuries), or a historiographic essay (such as the one of the 17^th century which is about to appear in Turkey, a result of a cooperation with a Turkish scholar).

After over five years of mutual work with an associate from Istanbul (Dr. Richard Wittmann), we are about to publish a volume which will include an introduction, summaries of a few hundred documents (Shari’a court records of Hasköy), an analytical chapter based on the documents and indices. It will appear in Brill, Leiden, ine forthcoming year (2012). These documents contain much information and enrich our knowledge of Jewish life and the way Jews related with the surrounding population and environment.

“The Sassoon Family: Jewish Plutocrats between East and West in an Age of Change.” The Sassons' Archive project received a four-year research grant from the Israel Science Foundation (ISF). Me and two young students have catalogued over 7200 letters (half of which were also scanned), most of them in Judeo-Arabic, dating 1850-1900. These include vast quantities of information, most of it is unknown, and is surely about to open new avenues of research in economic history, colonial history, history of Iraqi Jews in the Far East, and their mingling with the British society, etc. A few researchers are already interested in my findings. This would be a solid database for a study on a group that has been neglected so far.

Ihave many plans for the future. I am already committed to some important projects, and will definitely come up with new ideas. This (2011) is the last year of my project on the Sassoon family archive, sponsored by the ISF. I intend to apply for more funding in order to broaden and complete this project which is very promising.

I intend to publish (perhaps in co-operation with Prof. Matthias Lehmann from Indiana University) a volume on the 'Va'ad Pkidey Kushta' (=Istanbul Committee for Eretz Israel), which will include all the letters from the JTS manuscript, an extensive forward, a revised edition of the Ladino and Hebrew correspondence + English summaries, and an Index in Hebrew and in English. I already have transliteration of the scanned manuscript (c. 500 letters).
I intend to publish (perhaps in co-operation with Dr. Shuki Ecker of the Tel Aviv University) a research based on the surviving dozen of Jerusalem's communal books from the last quarter of the 18^th century. It will probably include a revised edition of one full volume, or selected passages. This sources will shed light on the life of the Jerusalem Jewish community in that period.
I wish to write a book on the Ottoman-Jewish Family, a subject that hasn't received a thorough and comprehensive research so far. I will incorporate gender studies, recent research on women and family in ottoman society, with a mass of sources I have accumulated in the last twenty years. It will be an important contribution to our knowledge of Jewish history, as well as general history; enable comparative studies etc.



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Curriculum Vitae CURRICULUM VITAE Yaron Ben-Naeh Updated: November 2011 1. PERSONAL DETAILS Date of Birth: 28.11.65 Country of Birth: Israel ID no.: 02217038-5 Nationality: Israeli Marital status: married No. of children: 2 Full Military Service: 1984-86 Permanent address: 31 Bustenai St., Jerusalem 93229 Tel.: 02-5355059 (home); 02-5883552 (office) E-mail address: yaronbn@huji.ac.il home page: http://www.pluto.huji.ac.il/~yaronbn/ 2. HIGHER EDUCATION (in chronological order) - At the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 1987-1989: B.A. (magna cum laude) in Archeology, and Jewish History. 1990-1992: M.A. (magna cum laude) in Jewish History, specializing in Ottoman Jewry. 1993-1999: Doctoral thesis, under the guidance of Prof. J.R. Hacker, titled: 'The Jewish Society in the Urban Centers of the Ottoman Empire in the 17th Century (Istanbul, Salonica & Izmir)'. 1995/6: Studied Modern & Ottoman Turkish at Bosphoros (Boğazici) University, Istanbul, and Ottoman History at Bilkent University, Ankara. 2000: Approval of Doctoral Thesis 'summa cum laude'. 2002/3-2005/6: Post-doctoral fellowship as a Mandel Scholar, Scholion Interdisciplinary Center, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. 3. APPOINTMENTS AT THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY (in chronological order) October 1997– July 2001: Lecturer, History of the Jewish People Dept., The Hebrew University, Jerusalem. March 2002 – July 2002: Adjunct teacher October 1^st – September 30^th 2005: Adjunct lecturer, and a Scholion scholar October 1^st 2005: Appointed as lecturer lecturer in the department of History of the Jewish People. January 15th 2007: Appointed Senior lecturer in the department of History of the Jewish People and Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. 4. ADDITIONAL FUNCTIONS/TASKS AT THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY (in chronological order) * 1996-2000: consultant for BA students. * 2002-2010: Coordinator of the bibliographic courses in my department. since October 2008: Director, Misgav Yerushalayim, Center for Research and Study of Sephardi and Oriental Jewish Heritage, at the Hebrew University. January-June 2010: Member of the scholarship and prizes committee of the Mandel Institute for Jewish Studies. Since June 2010: Member of the doctoral committee of the History School. Since October 2011: Chairman, Faculty of Humanities' Library Committee. Since October 2011: Member of the departmental Prizes Committee. Participating in the team of the 'Abrahamic Religions' i-core project . 5. SERVICE IN OTHER ACADEMIC AND RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS (in chronological order) 1990-1999: Researcher at the Ben-Zvi Institute for the Study of the Jewish Communities in the East (Jerusalem), and in a research project of the Institute of Jewish Studies, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem. 2000-2002: Lecturer in the History of the Jewish People and Eretz-Israel Studies Department, Tel Aviv University. 2007: Visiting scholar for the spring semester at the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, Penn University, Philadelphia. 6. OTHER ACTIVITY (in chronological order) * Since 1990: Lecturing on Ottoman Jewry before different audiences. * Since 2000: Lector and reviewer of (manuscript) articles for various Israeli and international periodicals and jubilee books, dissertations; evaluating research proposals for the ISF. * June 2004: Member of the organization committee of an international conference 'The Turks and Palestine: A 1000 Years of Relations', the Hebrew University & Yad Yitzhak Ben Zvi, Jerusalem. * 2002-2007: Participation in conducting a four-year (in fact, five) research project, headed by Prof. J.R. Hacker, and sponsored by the Israel Science Foundation (ISF): 'The Communal Ordinances of the Ottoman Jews, 15^th-19^th Centuries: A Reconstruction'. This is a sequel of a project on the printed sources (conducted: 1990-1997), which is about to appear in press. * 2007-2111: Conducting a four-year research funded by ISF, titled 'The Sassoon Family: Jewish Plutocrats between East and West in an age of Transition'. * Since 2008: Member of the Sam Toleadano Prize committee. * Since 2011: 'Reader' - Evaluator of doctoral and fellowship applications for the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, New York. 7. MEMBERSHIP IN A PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATION (in chronological order) * 2006-2007: Member in the forum of 'Young Scholars', in the Humanities and Social Sciences), the Israeli National Academy, Jerusalem * Since 2007: Member of the Israeli Historical Society * Since 2007: Member of the World Union of Jewish Studies * Since 2009: Member of the Middle East & Islamic Studies Association of Israel (MEISAI) * Since 2010: Member of the Society for Sephardic Studies Since 2011: Member of the AJS (Association for Jewish Studies. USA) 8. PRIZES & RESEARCH GRANTS* (in chronological order) 1989: Dean's Prize, Hattman Prize, The Faculty of Humanities, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem. 1990: Hefetz Prize, the Hebrew University (Jerusalem). 1991-1992: Grant from the Oriental Jewish Heritage Center, Ministry of Education 1990-1993: Living stipends from the Institute of Jewish Studies of the Hebrew University (Jerusalem) 1993: Ashtor Prize, Galbar Prize, Asseo Foundation Prize, Sephardi Federation (WZO) Grant 1994/5: Memorial Foundation - Mark Uveeler Doctoral Scholarship; SEC Grant 1994/5-1996/7: Rotenstreich living stipend 1995/6: Sephardi Federation (WZO) Grant 1996/7: A Memorial Foundation Scholarship, SEC Grant 1998-1999: Elyashar Fellowship in the Ben-Zvi Institute for the Study of the Jewish Communities in the East (Jerusalem). 2000/1: Warburg Prize, the Institute of Jewish Studies of the Hebrew University (Jerusalem). 2001: Ephraim Urbach Post-Doctoral Fellowship, the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture (New York). 2002/3-2004/5: Mandel Post-Doctoral Scholar, Scholion Center, Mandel Institute for Jewish Studies, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem. 2005/6: A Golda Meir Fellow, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem. May 2005: Granted financial support ($1,500) from the Faculty of Humanities, for the preparation for publication of a jointly-authored volume 'The Communal Ordinances of the Jews in the Ottoman Empire'. * November 2006: A one-year personal research grant ($10,000) from the Israel Science Foundation (ISF). * February 2007: A Grant (3500$) from the Faculty of Humanities research fund, for a research on the Sassoon Family. (this adds to a former 12,000$ grant for the same purpose). * April 2007: Awarded the President Yitzhak Ben Zvi Prize for my book: 'Jews in the Realm f the Sultans' (Hebrew version). * October 2007: A four-year personal research grant ($100,000) from the Israel Science Foundation (ISF). The subject: 'The Sassoon Family: Jewish Plutocrats between East and West in an age of Transition'.(no. 1157/06) * December 2007: Granted financial support (2000$) from the Faculty of Humanities for the preparation for publication of a jointly-authored volume “Everyday Life realities in The Haskӧy Quarter of 17^th Century Istanbul". This project received later financial aid from Misgav Yerushalayim. * August 2008: A Grant (8,000$) from the Ben-Barukh Fund, for a research on Jews' Wills from the Ottoman Empire. * February 2009: A Grant (5,000$) from the Ben-Barukh Fund, for a research on the Haskӧy quarter, Istanbul. * October 2011: Awarded the Arnold Wiznitzer Prize for my book: 'Jews in the Realm f the Sultans' (Hebrew version. 25,000 shekels). 9. TEACHING AT THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY A. Supervision of master and doctoral degree students in the last five years Master's degree students: since 2005: instructor and tutor of the following: Mr. David Angel: 'Purim Customs among Ottoman Jews in the 19^th-20^th century.' Co-superviser: Prof. Galit Hasan-Rokem. (concluded) Mrs. Yael Ben-Yashar: Jerusalem’s ‘Sephardi’ Jews according to the Montefiore Registers.(Hashlamot for PhD. Degree: 80) Mrs. Zufit Inbar: '19^th Century Jerusalem Yeshivot (=religious academies)' Co-superviser: Prof. Richard Cohen. (concluded. 85) Mr. Aviezer Tutian: 'Karaite Communities in the Ottoman East, and the Relations between them, 16^th-18^th centuries'. (he is about to submit) Mrs. Tzipi Cohen: 'Everyday Life in Ottoman Palestine'. (she is about to submit) Mrs.Avital Porat-Lubensky: 'The Sassoons – The New Sephardi Jews'. Miss Dikla Aharon, 'AfghaniI Jews – the Persian speaking communities in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century: A Case Study'. Foreign Students: 2005/6: Miss Kira Alvarez (Penn/Chicago University) 2005/6: Miss Julia Cohen (Stanford University) 2005/6: Miss Pnina Robasova (Prague University), returned 2007/8 for PhD. 2006: Mrs. Jessica Marglin (Harvard University) 2009: Miss Daria Kovaleva (Moscow University) Doctoral degree students: (since 2009/10): Mr. Yosef (Edi) Dagan: The Jews of Gabbes (Tunisia) 1820-1965: A Profile of a Community between Continuity and Change. There are informal connections between myself and PhD students and scholars from various universities in Turkey and the US who are seeking advise, information, co-operation etc. Some arrive through the Rothberg overseas school. To mention just three examples: Shaun Halper (Berkeley University), Rami Regavim (Penn University), Tomer Levi, Avner Wishnitzer (Lady Davis fellowship), Yasin Meral, and Doc. Dr. (Ass. Prof.) Nuh Arslantaş from Marmara University, Istanbul. B. Post-doctoral Visitors Dr. Arturo Marzano, Pisa/Rome Dr. Richard Wittmann, Orient Institut, Istanbul Prof. Nuh Arslantaş, Marmara University, Istanbul C. Courses taught in the last 5 years Bachelor's degree courses 2006: ‘A Land as all Lands’ – Jews in Ottoman Palestine; Assorted Topics in Communal and Individual Lives of the Jews under Islam 2007: ’Sabbatean Matters’: The Sabbatean Movement and its Aftermath; Women, Men & Children: Jewish Family in the Ottoman Empire 2008: ‘Galut ba-Aretz’: Eretz Israel Jews in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries; Individual, Family and Community under Islam 2009: Holy Safed and Profane Safed: The Safed Jewish Community in the Sixteenth Century; Issues in the History of Jewish Communities under Islam in the Nineteenth Century 2010: Eretz Israel Jews in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, Jewish Family in the Islamic World in the early modern period 2011: Jewish Life in Late Ottoman Palestine, 2012: Palestinian Jewry under the Mameluks and the Ottomans, Ottoman Jewry Master's degree courses 2006: Family and Family Life in Ottoman Jewish Communities 2008: Port Jews and Court Jews in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries 2009: The Hida’s Diary (‘Ma’agal Tov ha-Shalem’) as a Mirror for the Jewish World in the Eighteenth Century 2010: Bibliographic Travels: Jewish Society and Culture in the Early Modern Mediterranean. 2011: Modernization Processes in the Jewish Communities under Islam 2012: Family and Family Life in Ottoman Jewish Communities Academic Biography My PhD thesis and the book that emanated from it deal with Jewish society in the larger metropolitan centers of the Ottoman Empire during the seventeenth century, a formative period in its history. My attention focused on the communities in three central cities: Istanbul, Salonica, and Izmir, which together accounted for the vast majority of Ottoman Jewry. The main topics that were discussed were: the legal and social status of individuals and the community; organizational structure and operation of the congregations and the urban community; institutions of the congregation (kahal) and its leadership; social, economic and cultural characteristics of Ottoman Jewry. My research provided, for the first time, a comprehensive description and analysis of this Jewry in that period. It also laid the foundations for further study of this community. In the following years I published several articles which to some degree deal more extensively with topics discussed in relatively narrower context in the thesis and the book. These include, among others: inter-communal relations; self-government; charitable and philanthropic institutions; poverty and its treatment by the community. The period covered in my articles stretches from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, at which time significant changes took place in the area under Ottoman rule. I gradually came to realize that what most interested me was social and cultural history. The theme of acculturation and interaction with the majority society became clearer, and is a subject which I believe can provide important new insights about Jewish life under Islam. Since 2000 and during my post-doctoral years at the 'Scholion' Interdisciplinary Research Center my research focused on social, cultural, and mental aspects of Ottoman Jewish society. I availed myself of interdisciplinary approaches (e.g. gender studies), as had already been done in the study of European societies and to some degree also of Jewish communities in Europe. Despite the fact that these approaches are central to contemporary historical research, they are almost completely lacking in Ottoman Studies, and even more so in research on Ottoman Jewry. Studies written in the past decade have opened up fresh avenues of research and made it possible to raise new questions and examine mutual inter-societal influences. Later publications have veered away from the topics dealt with in my thesis, relating to issues having diverse geographical and chronological frameworks. The subjects of some of my recent articles,for example, were slaveholding which bears some new and important insights, the consumption of luxury goods, and recreational patterns of Jewish women in Ottoman Jerusalem. These articles are the materials out of which I intend to construct a wider monograph on Ottoman Jews at the beginning of the modern age. Among the topics with which I have dealt or am engaged in studying at the moment are the family, gender and sexual practices, delinquency and social surveillance, folk beliefs, conceptions of honor and shame, and more. I have for some time been engaged in preparing and studying a corpus of dozens of wills and testaments left by old and young men and women from among Ottoman Jewry. To all these I apply my basic assumption concerning the great and multi-faceted influence of the wider urban culture, particularly that of Ottoman Islamic society, upon Jewish society and its culture. I am constantly seeking out additional written sources and intend to publish them, so as to make them available to a wider audience. Besides the Shari’a court records from Istanbul which are about to be published, There are few Hebrew sources that will be published (see future plans). I find the publication of unknown important sources an appropriate venue, and even a desirable task, as less people tend to read sources, especially if these are manuscripts in non European languages. It might be a corpus of letters, a collection of communal regulations (such as that of the Edirne community in the 18^th-19^th centuries), or a historiographic essay (such as the one of the 17^th century which is about to appear in Turkey, a result of a cooperation with a Turkish scholar). After over five years of mutual work with an associate from Istanbul (Dr. Richard Wittmann), we are about to publish a volume which will include an introduction, summaries of a few hundred documents (Shari’a court records of Hasköy), an analytical chapter based on the documents and indices. It will appear in Brill, Leiden, ine forthcoming year (2012). These documents contain much information and enrich our knowledge of Jewish life and the way Jews related with the surrounding population and environment. “The Sassoon Family: Jewish Plutocrats between East and West in an Age of Change.” The Sassons' Archive project received a four-year research grant from the Israel Science Foundation (ISF). Me and two young students have catalogued over 7200 letters (half of which were also scanned), most of them in Judeo-Arabic, dating 1850-1900. These include vast quantities of information, most of it is unknown, and is surely about to open new avenues of research in economic history, colonial history, history of Iraqi Jews in the Far East, and their mingling with the British society, etc. A few researchers are already interested in my findings. This would be a solid database for a study on a group that has been neglected so far. Future Plans Ihave many plans for the future. I am already committed to some important projects, and will definitely come up with new ideas. This (2011) is the last year of my project on the Sassoon family archive, sponsored by the ISF. I intend to apply for more funding in order to broaden and complete this project which is very promising. I have been requested to write a huge entry, "Ottoman Jewry" for the Oxford Bibliographies Online. It is an annotated bibliography, containing up to 150 items, summing 'the state of the art'. (see letter) In 2011 I was nominated as editor of *Sefer Yerushalayim* - the Ottoman Period (Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Centuries), Yad Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, Jerusalem. This will be a part of a prestigious serie, edited and written by the best scholars. Advisory board includes Prof. Amnon Cohen, Prof. Amy Singer and Prof. Dror Zeevi. Articles are due in summer 2012. I have recently been asked to agree to edit another volume for the Ben-Zvi Institute serie on the Jewish communities – that on the Palestinian Sephardi "Yishuv' in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I signed a contract to write part of a book for the Open University, titled: The Ottomans. My part will be the legal and social status of the dhimmis. I intend to publish (perhaps in co-operation with Prof. Matthias Lehmann from Indiana University) a volume on the 'Va'ad Pkidey Kushta' (=Istanbul Committee for Eretz Israel), which will include all the letters from the JTS manuscript, an extensive forward, a revised edition of the Ladino and Hebrew correspondence + English summaries, and an Index in Hebrew and in English. I already have transliteration of the scanned manuscript (c. 500 letters). I intend to publish (perhaps in co-operation with Dr. Shuki Ecker of the Tel Aviv University) a research based on the surviving dozen of Jerusalem's communal books from the last quarter of the 18^th century. It will probably include a revised edition of one full volume, or selected passages. This sources will shed light on the life of the Jerusalem Jewish community in that period. I wish to write a book on the Ottoman-Jewish Family, a subject that hasn't received a thorough and comprehensive research so far. I will incorporate gender studies, recent research on women and family in ottoman society, with a mass of sources I have accumulated in the last twenty years. It will be an important contribution to our knowledge of Jewish history, as well as general history; enable comparative studies etc.