Faculty

Neta Altman | (Ph.D in molecular biology, Tel Aviv University) Since 2010 Neta holds an academic teaching faculty position at the Open University of Israel.

Neta conducts her research as a senior research associate at the laboratory of Prof. Uri Gophna at Tel Aviv University where she also holds a position as a part time lecturer. Her research focuses on horizontal gene transfer (HGT) and molecular ecology in halophilic archaeons, a class of the superkingdom Archaea that habitats the dead see as well as the Mediterranean see. Neta lives in Herzeliya with her husband and their three children

Professor Yael S. Feldman (PhD, Columbia University) holds the Abraham I. Katsh Chair of Hebrew Culture at the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, New York University, and is Professor of Comparative Literature and Gender Studies. She has previously taught at Columbia, Yale, and Princeton universities, and has published and lectured internationally.

She specializes in Hebrew Literature (from the Bible to Contemporary) and Comparative Lit., which she explores through the prism of Cultural Studies, Psychoanalysis, and Gender Criticism. Her latest studies, Glory and Agony: Isaac’s Sacrifice and National Narrative (Stanford UP) and No Room of Their Own: Gender and Nation in Israeli Women’s Fiction (Columbia UP), were both selected as National Jewish Book Awards Finalists.

Eytan Fox | is an acclaimed director and writer whose 2004 film Walk on Water - a story of a Mossad secret service agent who befriends the gay grandson of an ex-Nazi officer - has become the most successful Israeli film abroad.

Previously, 2002's Yossi & Jagger, the love affair between two officers in the Israeli army, became an international breakout hit. Born in New York City, at an early age Fox moved with his family to Israel. He grew up in Jerusalem, then studied at Tel Aviv University's School of Film and Television. His first film, Time Off, a 45-minute drama about sexual identity in the Israeli army, won him acclaim and led to the making his first feature, Song of the Siren, a romantic comedy which became Israel's biggest box office success in 1994. He also created and directed the Israeli TV dramatic series Florentine, which examined the life of young people in Tel Aviv before and after the Rabin assassination. Fox ran the film program at the Alon high school for the arts in Ramat Hasharon and has taught filmmaking at Tel Aviv University's School of Film and Television as well as at Sapir and Beit Berel colleges.

Assaf Friedler | (Ph.D in peptide chemistry and medicinal chemistry from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Isarel, in 2000) Between 2000-2004 he did his postdoctoral in the field of biophysical studies of protein-protein interactions at the MRC center for protein engineering Cambridge, UK, in the lab of Professor Sir Alan Fersht.

In 2004 he joined the institute of chemistry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. Since 2010 he is Professor of Chemistry and the head of the school of chemistry at the Hebrew University. His major research interests are using peptides to study protein-protein interactions in health and disease, and developing peptides as drugs that modulate these interactions. Of particular interests are intrinsically disordered proteins and how to make them drug targets. Prof. Friedler won a starting grant from the ERC (European Research Council) as well as the outstanding young scientist prize by the Israeli Chemical Society. In 2012 he won the Rector prize for an excellent teacher and researcher at the Hebrew University.

Ilana Goldberg (B.A. Hebrew University, M.A. New York University, Ph.D Bar-Ilan University) is an anthropologist and freelance academic translator specializing in Judaic studies, qualitative social sciences, and humanities.

Her Ph.D researched the impact of American-Jewish philanthropy on food assistance programs in Israel. She has worked in the non-profit field as well as in the e-learning sector, has translated a book on the history of Israeli anthropology, and is currently translating a book on medieval Hebrew manuscripts.

Michael Guggenheimer | has a degree in Semitic Linguistics and Arabic from Bar-Ilan University and pursued graduate studies in General Linguistics at Tel Aviv University. He served in the IDF for twenty years and currently teaches Arabic at the International School of Tel Aviv University as well as New York University.

He is a licensed tour guide and also works as copy editor in English and Hebrew, and as translator into Hebrew and English from Arabic and a number of other languages. Among his translations into Hebrew are former MK Azmi Bishara's story collection Wajd fi Bilad al-Hawajiz (from Arabic) and Freiherr Kress von Kressenstein's Mit den Tuerken zum Suezkanal (from German). Recently he was the translator of non-English entries of the new Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics published by Brill.

Benjamin Hary is the new Director of NYU-TA and a Visiting Professor at the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies. Up until recently Hary has been a Professor of Hebrew, Arabic, and Linguistics and the Director of the Program in Linguistics at Emory University. Hary is the author of Multiglossia in Judeo-Arabic (1992), Translating Religion (2009) and Daily Life in Israel (2012, with R. Adler).

He is also the editor and co-editor of Judaism and Islam (2000), Corpus Linguistics and Modern Hebrew (2003), and Esoteric and Exoteric Aspects in Judeo-Arabic Culture in 2006. He also published over 50 articles and book reviews on Judeo-Arabic, as well as Arabic and Hebrew linguistics, and has lectured widely in Europe, Israel, Egypt and North America. His research interests include Jewish languages in general and Judeo-Arabic in particular, Jews in the Islamic world, the politics of Arabic language use in Israeli society, corpus linguistics, Language and Religion, dialectology, and sociolinguistics. He has recently focused his research on issues such as why and how Jews (and for that matter, Christians and Muslims as well) speak and write differently from people who are not Jews or Christians and Muslims.

Ofri Ilany | (PhD, Tel Aviv University, 2013)

Ofri Ilany (PhD, Tel Aviv University, 2013) is a historian and essayist. He is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at the Center for the Study of Conversion and Interreligious Encounters at Ben Gurion University of the Negev. During the years 2013-2015 he was a Minerva postdoctoral fellow at Humboldt University, Berlin. Additionally, Dr. Ilany is a columnist at Haaretz Weekly supplement.

Madi Kablan | (B.A. in Psychology and Arabic, M.A. in Arabic, certificate of teaching Arabic, Tel Aviv University) is a teacher in the Department of Arabic and Islamic studies at the University of Tel Aviv & an academic coordinator and a teacher in the academic preparatory program for studying the Arabic language. He is also a teacher of Arabic at Ajyal High School in Jaffa and a linguistic editor and translator for arabynet site & makomakan site (CET).

His main interests include: Classic and modern Arabic grammar, medieval Arab grammatical tradition, Arabic journalism, philological commentary of the Qur'an & classical poetry.

Dr. Liraz Lasry holds a Ph.D. in Marketing from Tel Aviv University. Liraz specializes in strategic marketing and branding, trends, creating and spreading innovation in the 'Social-Digital' era, consumer behavior and social influences.

She is a judge at the "Product of the Year" innovation competition, former associate academic manager of the International MBA program at Tel-Aviv university (SOFEAR IMBA), and is often invited to give marketing and innovation lectures and workshops in Israeli and International firms. She was also a speaker at TEDx Jerusalem.

In 2014 Liraz was invited to join Singulariteam VC, where she is now a personal advisor the the VC's chairman, representing him at the portfolio companies on issues of branding and marketing, and advising the VC's startup companies CEOs through strategic processes. In some of the main portfolio companies she has built, lead and advised the branding and strategic process from day one.

Ruth Livne | has been a senior lecturer of Hebrew Language at the Center of Hebrew Language Studies, Tel-Aviv University for 20 years, and has taught at The JTS, Columbia, Brandeis and Boston Universities. She completed her graduate degree from the Department of Education at Boston University, and her BA in Hebrew Language and Literature from Tel-Aviv University.

Aside from lecturing at the Department of Hebrew Language at NYU and Tel-Aviv University, Ruth has taken on various additional roles in the past, including: lecturing and building the curriculum of the Hebrew Department at the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) in NY, heading the Hebrew program at the World Zionist Organization (WZO) in NY, where she was responsible for training Hebrew teachers throughout the USA and managing the Ulpan program, as well as lecturing at Columbia University, Brandeis University and Boston University. She is also the author of the books: Structures in the Syntax of Hebrew Language (2001) and The Verb System for Intermediate levels (2007).

Carmela Lutmar | (B.A., University of Haifa; M.A., University of Notre Dame; Ph.D., New York University) is a lecturer at the University of Haifa, Israel. She received a B.A. from the University of Haifa, an M.A. in Peace Studies from University of Notre Dame, and a Ph.D. in International Relations from the Politics Department at New York University.

Her research interests are in leadership changes, causes of war and peace, military occupations, mediation in civil wars, and designs for conflict resolution.

Itamar Radai (PhD, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2010) is the academic director of the Konrad Adenauer Program for Jewish-Arab Cooperation at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Tel Aviv University.

During the years 2010-2011 Dr Radai was a postdoctoral fellow at the Taub Center for Israel Studies, Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, NYU, where he also taught.

Orly Rahimiyan | is a Ph.D. candidate in Middle Eastern Studies at Ben-Gurion University and a Research Fellow at the Ben Zvi Institute. She received an M.A. summa cum laude in Islamic and Middle Eastern studies as well as a B.A. summa cum laude in Arabic (language and literature) and Iranian studies from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Ms. Rahimiyan is the recipient of several awards and fellowships, including a Fulbright Scholarship to study at Columbia University's Center for Iranian Studies, the Phyllis Greenberg Heideman and Richard D. Heideman Fellowship at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., The Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture International Doctoral Scholarship, Nathan Rotenstreich Scholarship from Ben-Gurion University, and a Vidal Sassoon International Center Scholarship. Ms. Rahimiyan contributed 42 entries on Judeo-Persian people and places to editor Norman Stillman's Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World, and also appears in editor Ihsan Yarshater's Encyclopedia Iranica and editor Manocher Dorraj's Iran Today: An Encyclopedia of Life in the Islamic Republic.

Tali Rozen | (B.A. & L.L.B., Tel Aviv University) teaches Hebrew at various levels at NYU Tel Aviv and at Tel Aviv University, The Overseas Program (undergraduate students) and the International Program (graduate students).

She was born and raised in Israel and lived in the US for 11 years, in
the DC area with her family. She worked at George Washington
University teaching Hebrew courses in the Semitic Languages
Department. Her hobbies and interests include spending time with her
3 children, reading books and translating books and articles
from English to Hebrew.

Arik Sadan | holds a BA in linguistics and Arabic Language and Literature (2001) and an MA (2004) and Ph.D (2010) in Arabic Language and Literature, all from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Arik Sadan wrote both his MA and PhD theses under the supervision of Prof. Aryeh Levin, receiver of the Israel Prize for Linguistics (2010). Both theses deal with Arabic grammatical thought in general and the verbal system of Classical Arabic in particular. Having submitted his PhD thesis, Sadan traveled to Paris and Jena, Université Paris 7 and Friedrich-Schiller-Universität respectively, where he spent two years of post-doctoral research. His post-doctoral research project focuses on editing and analyzing an ancient treatise in the field of Arabic grammar which deals not only with grammar and syntax but also with Rhetoric and Logic, based on eleven different manuscripts. In 2012 Sadan published the scientific edition of this work with Harrassowitz Verlag, as well as a revised English version of his PhD thesis with Brill. Sadan’s research fields are Arabic grammatical thought, Arab grammarians, Classical, Modern and Colloquial Arabic linguistics, manuscripts in Arabic grammar and other fields. He teaches various courses in various academic institutions in these fields.

Yifat Thareani | Currently a research archaeologist at the Nelson Hlueck School of Biblical Archaeology, Hebrew Union College, Jerusalem and a post-doc student at École Pratique des Hautes Études, Sorbonne V, Paris and at the Leon -Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies, University of Haifa.

She completed her BA, MA and PhD in Archaeology at Tel-Aviv University (dissertation title: Towns in the Desert: Geographical, Economic and Sociopolitical Perspectives written under the direction of Prof. Israel Finkelstein and Prof. Nadav Na'aman). Her dissertation was followed by the final publication of the archaeological excavations from Tel 'Aroer. Both studies dealt with socio-political aspects of desert urbanism, imperial control strategies and local identity at the desert frontier. Dr. Thareani's postdoctoral research is entitled: Between Israel, Aram and Assyria: Tel Dan in the Iron II. This research is aimed at clarifying the cultural response to various control strategies (empires and local kingdoms) and their reflection in the archaeological record. Finally, Dr. Thareani has supervised excavation fields at Beth-Shemesh and she currently co-directs the archaeological excavation at Tel Dan on behalf of the Nelson Glueck School of Biblical Archaeology.

Faculty Spotlight

Female professor standing with two male students in an art exhibit

Eytan Fox

Eytan Fox is an acclaimed director and writer. He was born in New York City and at an early age, moved with his family to Israel. He grew up in Jerusalem, then studied at Tel Aviv University’s School of Film and Television. His first film, Time Off, a 45-minute drama about sexual identity in the Israeli army, won him acclaim and led to the making his first feature, Song of the Siren, a romantic comedy which became Israel's biggest box office success in 1994. He also created and directed the Israeli TV dramatic series Florentine, which examined the life of young people in Tel Aviv before and after the Rabin assassination. His 2002 film, Yossi & Jagger, about a love affair between two officers in the Israeli army, became an international breakout hit. He followed that film up with a sequel, Yossi, last year. His 2004 film Walk on Water - a story of a Mossad secret service agent who befriends the gay grandson of an ex-Nazi officer - has become the most successful Israeli film abroad. Fox ran the film program at the Alon high school for the arts in Ramat Hasharon and has taught filmmaking at Tel Aviv University's School of Film and Television as well as at Sapir and Beit Berel colleges.

View some of his work:

The Bubble Trailer

Yossi Trailer