The Research Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem investigates historical and current aspects of the individual and the Jewish collective experience in Israel and the diaspora through the lenses of different disciplines. Professor Moshe Davis (1916-1996) established the Institute in 1959 and served as its head until 1973. The Institute is named after Avraham Harman, the president of the Hebrew University in the years 1968-1983.
The object of the Institute is to promote teaching and interdisciplinary research of Jewish life in the twentieth century, integrate the field into the curriculum of Jewish Studies and research using a broad range of methodologies, such as oral history, and research approaches including gender and critical theories.
The Institute’s research faculty includes historians of the Zionist movement, the Holocaust and genocide, Jewish communities in the diaspora, demographers, and social scientists. In the past, the Institute operated a department for advanced degrees now incorporated into the Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry. The Institute supports publications on contemporary Jewry in Hebrew and other languages and publishes the Contemporary Jewry Studies journal, the most important journal in the field. The Institute has a unique library in the field of modern Jewish demography and an oral history division that operates in collaboration with the National Library of Israel and holds one thousand interviews on a broad range of topics relating to contemporary Jewry. Two independent research centers are affiliated with the Institute: the Cherrick Center for the Study of Zionism, the Yishuv and the State of Israel, and the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism. The Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archive is also associated with the Institute. Currently, the Institute’s areas of activity are integrated into the Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry and other research centers of the Humanities and Social Sciences Faculties of the Hebrew University. The Institute supports students in various disciplines engaged in studies connected to contemporary Jewry with scholarships and awards, organizes academic conferences, and collaborates with universities and research centers around the world.
Prof. Davis first lectures, 1960's
The establishment of The Research Institute of Contemporary Jewry, Sprinzak Building, Givat Ram. In the Photo: Prof. Roberto Beky (third from the right), Prof. Moshe Davis (sixth from the right), Prof, Jacob Katz, Levi Eshkol, Abba Eban (forth from the left), Joseph Boreg (Second from the left).
Prof. Moshe Davis