Center for the Study of Conversion & Inter-Religious Encounters

We're delighted to announce that Dr. Melissa Elbaz, social anthropologist and CSoC Postdoctoral Fellow of the 2025-2026 academic year, has been awarded the prestigious postdoctoral fellowship at the Center for the Study of Christianity at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (https://csc.huji.ac.il) for the 2026-2027 academic year.

The fellowship will support the continuation of her research project "From Christian Schisms to Jewish Conversion: An Ethnography of Latin American Trajectories, from Church to Church, to Israel". Based on ethnographic fieldwork among Latin American converts and prospective converts to Judaism in Jerusalem, the project examines how internal divisions and disputes within the Christian world shape trajectories of religious mobility, leading individuals to move between Christian denominations before ultimately embracing Judaism and settling in Israel.

We warmly congratulate Dr. Elbaz on this well-deserved achievement and wish her every success in the next stage of her academic career!

Proud to announce CSoC incoming post-doctoral fellows for the 2026-2027 academic year, focusing on "Contemporary Religious Life": https://www.bgu.ac.il/en/u/research-centers/csoc/fellows2026-2027/

CSoC Fellow of 2024-2025, Dr. Elad Ben David, spoke in the Contemporary Antisemitism Conference in Haifa last week on: "From Distinction to Conflation: A Comparative Analysis of YouTuber Imams in America & Indonesia on Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism Post-10/7 Era" https://compercenter.haifa.ac.il/?page_id=539

למקרה ופספסת את אירוע הספר לכבוד ד"ר מאיה שבת, הנה ההקלטה!

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הזמנה להרצאה מד"ר שי פררו, מזכיר האגודה הישראלית לחקר דתות:

פרופ' ליאורה צרפתי (אוניברסיטת תל אביב): "מנחות וקורבנות בשמאניזם הקוריאני: האכלת אלי הטבע ורוחות המתים כחלק מהפולחן העכשווי", במסגרת תוכנית הרצאות מקוונת שמתמקדת בנושא 'דת ותרבות חומרית'. 18:00 יום רביעי 8 ביולי: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83953311557

In case you missed the first gathering of the Israeli Forum for the Study of the Bahāʾī Faith, here's the recording! https://www.bgu.ac.il/en/u/research-centers/csoc/recorded-lectures/