Former Fellows

I am a PhD student at the Program for History, Philosophy and Sociology of Science of the Hebrew University.
In my doctoral dissertation, under the guidance of Dr. Othniel Dror and Dr. Jonathan Dekel-Chen, I deal with
the intellectual biography of Alexander R. Luria, as a key figure in the development of neuropsychology in the
Soviet Union. The attempt of Luria and his circle to introduce a materialist and at the same time
non-reductionist approach to the research of brain and mind remains very relevant nowadays and for
the last decades, being neurosciences at the forefront of scientific endeavor. Through the prism of an
intellectual biography I examine processes and factors that shape the creation and acceptance of a scientific
knowledge. Dealing with intellectual biography allows me to focus on the ways in which two contradictory-
complementary aspects of science shape together the scientific activity. From my perspective, science is,
on the one hand, a local social institution influenced by social, political and ideological processes of the given
society, and on the other hand is a trans-national system that declares a shared professional ethos and aspires
to establish a universal objective knowledge. The first aspect, science as a local social institution, also allows
me to deal with questions relating to the general history of the Soviet Union, such as the degree of cultural isolation
during various relevant periods of the Soviet history, the role of scientists in the socio-political system of the
Soviet Union, and the impact of ideology in scientific research.

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Julia Rusakova is a Doctoral fellow at Hebrew University, Department of German, Russian and
East European Studies. She is specializes in Economic History of the Ukrainian Jews in the
Early Modern Period.Her research project investigates the Jewish involvement in the landholdings
and leasing monopoly rights in Lutsk district of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth during
1569-1647 years. Her work focuseson the comparative study ofall types, forms and proportions
of Jewish leaseholding,yield a deeper understanding of the principles, characteristics and
differences of Jewish leaseholding in rural and urban areas.The sources for the present project
are archival documents and narrative texts (records from municipal courts, protocols from the
Council of Four Lands, lustrations, censuses and other sources) from Ukraine, the Russian Federation and Poland.

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Anat Vaturi: born in Poland, educated in Poland and Israel is a Ph.D. candidate
at Tel Aviv University School of History. Her research concentrates on Jews and
Protestants in Post-Reformation Cracow. Her scholarly interests include
Polish-Jewish history, early modern history, interreligious relations, interplay
of law and religion, history of tolerance. 

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Social History of the Synagogue in Eastern Europe in Modern Times

My research concentrates on the synagogue (and its subtypes: beit midrash, kloyz, shtibl etc.),
which was the main public institution and main public space of Jewish communities.
Its functions went far beyond the narrowly defined realm of religion and it played
an extremely important role in many aspects of Jewish life. Therefore I research
the synagogue as a social institution, which stood at the center of the traditional
Jewish society and passed with that society through processes of modernization
and change, gradually loosing its centrality with the development of secular public
institutions. At the same time, the synagogue is architecturally defined space and
its spatial features clearly reflect its social functioning.

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Dr. Raz Segal earned his Ph.D. at the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies (History Department),
Clark University (2013). His work explores the Holocaust as integral to modern processes of imperial collapse,
social disintegration, and formation of new states. It focuses on two key issues: state and nation building and
the multi-layered mass violence against Jews and other groups that ensued from political visions and designs
during World War II; and relations between Jews and non-Jews in the broader frame of interethnic and inter-
religious relations amid war and state violence. Dr. Segal’s research stands at the intersection of modern
European history, Holocaust scholarship, Genocide Studies, and Jewish history, and links the Holocaust to
genocide and mass violence before, during, and after World War II.

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Dr. inna Shtakser graduated from The University of Texas at Austin in 2007.
Since then she taught at The University of Texas at Austin, at Dalhousie University
(NS, Canada) and at the Apeejay Stya University (India). Her manuscript titled
The Making of Jewish Revolutionaries in the Pale: Poverty, Work, Community and the
Transformation of Identity during the 1905-1907 Russian Revolution was recently
accepted for publication by Palgrave Macmillan. Her published articles deal with
cultural history of Jewish working-class radicalism in the Russian empire and with
self-defense against the pogroms. At the moment she is working on a manuscript
dealing with anarchist groups in Odessa before WWI.

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Daniel Rosenthal is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Jewish History
at the University of Haifa through the Israeli Inter-university Partnership in Russia and
East European Studies. He received his Ph.D. in History in 2014 from the
University of Toronto. His dissertation, entitled “Decomposing Identities: Shifting
Perceptions of Death and Burial among Jews in Interwar Poland”, investigates the
ways in which all Jews in Poland, irrespective of religious or political affiliations,
refashioned their ideas about death, funerals, and burial in the decades between
the World Wars due to new ideas of selfhood, changing forms of social cohesion,
and the growing regulation of death by the new Polish republic. He is currently
working to transform this project into a monograph entitled, “Burying Poland’s Jews:
Transforming Death and the Self in Early Twentieth Century Polish-Jewish Consciousness.”
Daniel also holds an M.A. in History from the University of Toronto, and a B.A.
from the Johns Hopkins University. 

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Levi Cooper was born in Melbourne, Australia. He holds a PhD from Bar-Ilan University’s
Faculty of Law and in 2014/15 he was awarded a post-doctoral fellowship in Tel Aviv University’s
Faculty of Law. Levi’s research interests include: Legal History in the late modern period, Law
and Literature, and the interplays between Jewish legal writing and broader legal, intellectual,
and cultural contexts. Levi’s work has focused on law in the hasidic milieu. Levi’s current
project explores the relationship between European Enlightenment codification and early
nineteenth century Jewish legal writing in the Russian Empire.

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Rafael Tsirkin-Sadan has received his PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem,
and served as the Stanley A. and Barbara B. Rabin Postdoctoral Fellow at Columbia University.
His research interests include: Russian literature and intellectual history, Hebrew literature,
literature and history, transnationalism and narratives of immigration. Rafi is the author of
two books Jewish Letters at the Pushkin Library: Y.H. Brenner's work and its connection
to Russian Literature and Thought (Bialik Institute, 2013), and Wandering Heroes,
Committed Writers: Nihilists and Nihilism in Russian Literature (Van Leer/Hakibutz Hameuhad,
forthcoming in 2015). As a Postdoctoral Fellow of Israeli Partnership in Russian Studies he will
be teaching two courses at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem: "October Revolution in Film
and Literature" and "Family-breakdown in Anna Karenina and Brothers Karamazov"

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I am a PhD student at the Department of Jewish History, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
In my dissertation project I examine the emergence of the educated Jewish elites in Late
Imperial Russia. I concentrate, specifically, on the ideologies and practices of the
Jewish high-school and university students. Using microhistorical techniques and discursive
analysis, I discuss the social background and ideological outlooks of the members of
these groups, and trace the roots of the notions of social responsibility and political
leadership, which turned them into socially committed activists. 

My broader scholarly interests include Jewish-Russian historiography, theory of history,
intellectual history of Late Imperial Russia and the history of Jewish nationalism.

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My research deals with the history of the Jews in the Cossack Hetmanate
between the years 1649-1772. The research deals with several issues such
as the relations between the Jews and non-Jews after the “GezerothTakh-Tat”,
the economic activity of the Jews and the ways and the patterns of the resettlement
of the Jews in the Hetmanate. My current supervisor is Prof. Mordechai Zalkin.
I got my MA degree in General History from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
The topic of my MA thesis was "The August Agreement of 1610: the turning point
in history of Muscovy", under the supervision of Prof. Jonathan Frenkel and
Dr. Judith Kalik from the Hebrew University.

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