Faculty
In the field of migration, Tel Aviv University is home to a prominent group of scholars whose work is recognized internationally. The expertise of faculty members is called upon by national and local government agencies in developing migration and integration policies and to evaluate intervention projects. Members of the faculty are also closely affiliated with civil society organizations and serve on the boards of or hold advisory roles at NGOs that work to improve the conditions of immigrant populations, such as foreign laborers and refugees.
You can read more about our lecturers from current courses in the tabs below:
Prof. Kemp teaches the seminar “Civil Society and Migration”, which includes an internship (First and second semester, mandatory).
Adriana Kemp is a political sociologist and the director of the School of Social Studies and Policy at Tel-Aviv University. She is the co-founder of the TAU M.A. Program on Sociology of Organizations and Social Change and Member of the Academic Board at the M.A. in Migration Studies.
Her research addresses scholarship at the crossroads of precarious migrations, citizenship and civil society and scholarship on the re-scaling of politics and urban governance. She has published over thirty refereed articles on these topics in journals like International Migration Review, Gender and Society, Political Geography, IJURR, Law and Society Review, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Social Problems, Urban Studies, and Environment and Planning A among others. She is the author of numerous book chapters, the co-editor of two collective volumes and the co-author of a book on Migrants and Workers: the political economy of labour migration in Israel. Kemp was a visiting professor at Columbia University and a Lipinsky Visiting Professor at SDSU; she has been regularly invited to lecture at the MIM Master Program and has worked as a consultant for the OECD, among others.
Prof. Kemp has been the recipient of numerous research grants, including five grants from the National Science Foundation and two grants from the Ministry of Science and Culture. Her latest research project titled “Do papers matter? Legal liminality in the life-course of migrant workers and refugees’ children (ages 12-25) in Israel”, deals with the socio-political implications of the uncertain legal status on migrants’ and asylum seekers’ children and youth. While the number of children and youngsters growing up in legal uncertainty as a result of recent waves of precarious migrations and restrictionist policies has been on the rise in wealthier countries, only recently research has begun to pay systematic attention to the multiple social, political and developmental consequences of this phenomenon. Drawing on the Israeli case, this multi-level research engages recent sociological and anthropological scholarship on legal liminality and examines how ambiguous legal status intersects with policy frameworks, institutional actors and children’s own expectations and histories. Her many civic activities include serving as the chairwoman of ACRI, the largest HR NGO in Israel in 2010-2014.
You can read more about Prof. Adriana Kemp’s work on her Google Scholar profile and on her website.
Selected Publications:
Dr. Ina Kubbe teaches the courses “Gender, Conflict and Migration - Why is it Such a Big Deal?” (Second semester, elective) and “European Politics and Migration” (Summer semester, elective).
She received her PhD from the Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, Germany in 2013. Her Dissertation dealt with “Corruption in Europe in Comparative Perspective”. Ina holds a Master degree from the University of Greifswald in Political Science, Business Administration, and Communication Studies. Since 2016, she is a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the School of Political Science, Government and International Affairs at Tel Aviv University. Her research interests are in Comparative Research on Democracy, (Political) Corruption, Gender Politics, Political Culture Research – with a special focus on Europe and the Middle East, Social Science Methods, in particular quantitative, experimental and mixed methods.
Among others, Ina is a consultant for the OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe) in Albania in support of anti-corruption initiatives; gender mainstreaming, human rights protection; legislative, judicial, and media reform; capacity-building of law enforcement officials; she is also a consultant for Transparency International (Country Assessor: Government Defence Anti-Corruption Index for Germany and Israel). Furthermore, Ina is a founder and coordinator of the ECPR (European Consortium for Political Research) Standing Group on (Anti-) Corruption and Integrity, and the Regional Coordinator (Northern and Western Europe), European Commission Directorate General for Migration and Home Affairs (DG Home / Ecorys) in support of their anti-corruption efforts. Since August 2018, she is an International Consultant and Developer for the United Nations, in particular on “Corruption and Comparative Politics”, “Corruption, Peace and Security”, “Corruption and Gender”, “Corruption and Good Governance”, and “Corruption and Human Rights”.
You can find more information about Dr. Ina Kubbe on her website.
Selected Publications:
Cvetanoska, L., & Kubbe, I. (2022). The impact of corruption on gender in Central and Eastern Europe: how corruption challenges women's life. In Norms, Gender and Corruption (pp. 159-181). Edward Elgar Publishing. Link
Kubbe, I. and Varraich, A. (Eds.) (2020). Corruption and Informal Practices in the Middle East and North Africa. First Edition. Routledge Corruption and Anti-Corruption Studies. New York: Routledge. Link
Kubbe, I. (April 2, 2018). An Eye for an Eye – The Role of Reciprocity in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Link
Prof. Anastasia Gorodzeisky heads the M.A. in Migration Studies program and teaches the seminar “Public Attitudes Towards Immigration and Immigrants” (second semester).
She is a faculty member in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Tel Aviv University, Israel. She holds a M.A. in Journalism from the Ural State University, Russia, and a M.A. in Sociology and Anthropology from Tel Aviv University. Anastasia earned her Ph.D. from Tel-Aviv University (2009). Afterwards, she spent three years as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Center for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (CEACS) at Juan March Institute, Madrid, Spain. Before joining the faculty of Tel Aviv University, she held regular academic appointment in Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel.
Prof. Anastasia Gorodzeisky is an Editorial Board Member for Social Forces (since 2018) and Social Science Research (since 2019). Her research interests are in Global Migration and Immigrant Integration; Discriminatory Attitudes and Prejudice (with focus on out-group populations); Cross-national Comparative Sociology; Research Methods.
You can read more about Prof. Anastasia Gorodzeisky’s work on her Google Scholar profile, her website, or follow her on Twitter.
Selected Publications:
Caller, S., & Gorodzeisky, A. (2022). Racist views in contemporary European societies. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 45(9), 1627-1648. Link
Sanderson, M. R., Semyonov, M., & Gorodzeisky, A. (2021). Declining and splitting: Opposition to immigration in the United States, 1996–2018. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 80, 27-39. Link
Gorodzeisky, A. (2019). Opposition to immigration in contemporary Russia. Post-Soviet Affairs, 35(3), 205–222. Link
Gorodzeisky, A., & Leykin, I. (2019). When Borders Migrate: Reconstructing the Category of ‘International Migrant.’ Sociology, 1–17. Link
Dr. Anna Prashizky teaches the course “Theories of Identity in the Context of Migration” (summer semester, required).
She holds a Master’s and a PhD Degree from the Sociology and Anthropology Department at Bar-Ilan University. She wrote her dissertation on Wedding Rituals in Israeli Society: A Comparative Study of Ritualization and Performativity. Besides teaching at Tel Aviv University, she is a senior lecturer at the Western Galilee Academic College and the Managing Editor of the Sociological Papers Journal published by Sociological Institute for Community Studies in Bar-Ilan University.
Anna’s research interests are in Sociology of Immigration, Russian Immigrants in Israel, Anthropology of Rituals. Her future projects are dealing with the ethnographic study of the Russian art, poetry, music and festivals produced by these young Russian immigrants in Israel.
Dr. Anna Prashizky on Google Scholar and on ResearchGate.
Selected Publications:
Prashizky, A. (2022). Connecting Ethnicity and Space: the New Russian-Mediterranean Pop Culture in Israel’s Periphery. Int. Migration & Integration, 23: 125–140. Link
Prashizky, A.(2021). On generation citizenship: The new Russian protest among young immigrant adults in Israel. Journal of Israeli History, 39(2): 237-257. Link
Prashizky, A. (2020). Homeland Holidays as Anchors of Immigrant Ethnicity: New Year Celebration among Young Russian Israelis. Social Identities: Journal for the Study of Race, Nation and Culture, 26(1): 16-30. Link
Prashizky, A. (2019). Ethnic Fusion in Migration: The New Russian–Mizrahi Pop-Culture Hybrids in Israel. Ethnicities 19 (6): 1062–81. Link
Prashizky, A. and Remennick, L. (2018). Celebrating Memory and Belonging: Young Russian Israelis Claim Their Unique Place in Tel-Aviv’s Urban Space. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 47 (3): 336–66. Link
Professor Noah Lewin-Epstein is the founder and former head of the M.A. in Migration Studies. He leads the Thesis Workshop (mandatory for students pursuing the thesis track).
Lewin-Epstein is Professor of Sociology at Tel-Aviv University and past Dean of the Faculty of Social Science. He received the PhD from the University of Chicago in 1982. His areas of interest include social inequality, ethnic stratification, and migration. He authored and co-authored 4 books and published extensively in major international journals. His research addresses the relationship between economic structures and the socioeconomic achievements. His studies have focused primarily on disadvantaged populations including international migrants and ethnic minorities. He has extensive experience in international consortia for data collection (ISSP and ESS) and international collaborative research projects. Since 2015 he heads the social science division of the Israel Science Foundation.
You can read more about Prof. Noah Lewin-Epstein work on his website and Google Scholar profile.
Selected Publications:
Semyonov, M., & Lewin-Epstein, N. (2021). The wealth gap between ageing immigrants and native-born in ten European countries. Sociologicky Casopis, 57(6), 639-660. Link
Albertini, M., Tur-Sinai, A., Lewin-Epstein, N., & Silverstein, M. (2022). The Older Sandwich Generation Across European Welfare Regimes: Demographic and Social Considerations. European Journal of Population, 38(2), 273-300. Link
Cohen, Y., Lewin-Epstein, N., & Lazarus, A. (2019). Mizrahi-Ashkenazi educational gaps in the third generation. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, 59, 25-33. Link
Lewin-Epstein, N., & Cohen, Y. (2019). Ethnic origin and identity in the Jewish population of Israel. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 45(11), 2118-2137. Link
Dr. Yossi Harpaz teaches the seminar "Citizenship as Status, Practice and Identity" (Second semester).
Yossi Harpaz has earned his Ph.D. in Sociology from Princeton University. He is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Tel-Aviv University, and his research interests include citizenship, globalization, international migration, national identity, and social theory. Harpaz recently completed a postdoctoral appointment at Harvard University. His first book, Citizenship 2.0: Dual Nationality as a Global Asset (2019, Princeton University Press), examines the global consequences of states’ increasing toleration of dual citizenship. It argues that the proliferation of dual citizenship creates opportunities for individuals from less developed countries to strategically acquire a second nationality, which they use as a premium passport, insurance policy, or even status symbol.
You can find more information about Dr. Yossi Harpaz on his website and his Google Scholar profile.
Selected Publications:
Harpaz, Y., & Nassar, I. (2022). Crossing borders, choosing identity: strategic self-presentation among Palestinian-Israelis travelling abroad. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 45(12), 2340-2361. Link
Harpaz, Y. (2022). One foot on shore: An analysis of global millionaires' demand for US investor visas. The British Journal of Sociology. Link
Harpaz, Y. (2021). Conspicuous mobility: The status dimensions of the global passport hierarchy. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 697(1), 32-48. Link
Harpaz, Y., & Mateos, P. (2019). Strategic citizenship: Negotiating membership in the age of dual nationality. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 45(6), 843-857. Link
Dr. Avinoam Cohen teaches the course "Comparative Migration and Citizenship Regimes" (First semester, mandatory course).
Avinoam Cohen received his PhD from the Faculty of Law at Tel Aviv University. He studies and works at the intersections of migration governance, legal institutions, law and society and political theory. He is a lecturer of public international law and human rights and is the head of the excellence and laureates programs at the College of Management and the Striks School of Law. Dr. Cohen is a TraffLab Research Fellow.
Watch here a presentation by Dr. Cohen on Contemporary Refugee Policies in Comparative Perspective.
Dr. Yuval Livnat teaches the course "Legal and Ethical Perspectives On Refugees" (First semester, elective).
Yuval Livnat received his J.S.D. (Doctorate of the Science of Law) from Columbia Law School, where he was also a Fellow of the Columbia Public Policy Consortium.
During 2003-2012 he represented low-income Israeli and Palestinian workers, migrant workers and asylum seekers, first as the legal advisor of Kav LaOved, and later as part of the TAU Refugee Rights Clinic. He took part in impact litigation before the Supreme Court of Israel (e.g., HCJ 11437/05 on a female migrant worker's right to give birth and stay in Israel with her newborn until the full term of her guest worker visa, and HCJ 1105/06 on social rights of long stay migrant workers) and was involved in the Anti-Trafficking legislation proceedings of 2006. During 2014-2017 he served as the Editor-in-Chief of TAU's Journal of Law & Social Change.
Dr. Livnat combines academic work with activism for social change through non-profit organizations. Between 2012 and 2018 he served as the executive director of the Israel AIDS Task Force and since 2020 he serves as the executive director of Adva Center. He was a member of several public committees, side by side with being a research fellow in several academic institutions (e.g. Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Trafflab – Labor Perspective to Human Trafficking, Tel Aviv University). He teaches and researches immigration law and policy at the Faculty of Law and at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology of Tel Aviv University. He is the academic supervisor of the Refugee Rights Clinic.
For more information and contact, follow this link.
Selected publications:
Yuval Livnat and Hila Shamir, "Gaining Control? Bilateral Labor Agreements and the Shared Interest of Sending and Receiving Countries to Control Migrant Workers and the Illicit Migration Industry", 23(2) Theoretical Inquiries in Law 65 (2022). Link
Yuval Livnat, "Ideological Exclusion of Foreigners in Israel and in the United States" 36 Buffalo Human Rights Law Review 301 (2020). Link
Yuval Livnat, Galia Sabar and Neta Mishly, "Legal Rules and Cultural Bias: When are Intimate Partnerships with a Foreigner considered "Insincere" by Israeli Authorities?" 17 Dartmouth Law Journal 64 (2019). Link
Dr. Udi (Ehud) Sommer teaches the course "Research Methods" (First semester, mandatory).
Udi Sommer is professor at the School of Political Science, Government and International Relations. He has been a member of the Global Young Academy since 2019 and of the Scientific Council of the Blavatnik Interdisciplinary Cyber Research Center and the Center for the Study of the United States at Tel Aviv University with the Fulbright Program. He was Chairperson of the Israel Young Academy from 2018-2019 and co-chaired the Israeli Cyber Forum at Columbia University.
Udi Sommer’s broad research interests are in Comparative and American Politics, Politics of Sexuality and Gender, Judicial politics, pandemics and politics, and Cyber Security. His scholarship has appeared in over 35 peer reviewed publications such as Regulation & Governance, Political Behavior, World Development, Demography, Public Administration, Journal of Public Policy, Comparative Political Studies, The Law & Society Review, Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, Political Studies, Judicature, and the Justice System Journal, among others. His third scholarly book was published with Cambridge in 2019 and focused on the Production of Reproductive Rights.
You can read more on Dr. Sommer’s website and Google Scholar profile.
Selected Publications:
Sommer, U., & Rappel‐Kroyzer, O. (2022). Pandemic Politics in the United States: COVID‐19 as a New Type of Political Emergency. Political Psychology, 43(4), 769-792. Link
Sommer, U., & Forman-Rabinovici, A. (2021). Comparative Abortion Law and Politics. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. Link
Sommer, U., & Asal, V. (2020). A comparative analysis of women’s political rights, 1981–2004: the role of legal traditions. Journal of Women, Politics & Policy, 41(4), 416-440. Link
Dr. Sabah teaches the course “Evaluation of Migration-Related Programs” (Second semester, mandatory).
Yekoutiel (Couty) Sabah holds a PhD in Social Work, a master’s degree in Sociology of Education and a bachelor’s in social work degree, all of them from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He also holds a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard University Kennedy School of Government. He has been a visiting scholar in several American universities and research centers and has published several articles and policy papers, mostly on social services management issues. Dr. Sabah has served as the Head of the National Statistical System Coordination Division at the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, as the Head of the Research, Planning and Training Division at the Ministry of Social Affairs and as the Head of the Civil Service Reform Taskforce at the Israeli Civil Service Commission. He is now a private consultant to NGO’s and adjunct faculty in several Israeli universities.
Selected Publications:
Sabah, Y., & Cook-Craig, P. (2021) Organizational learning. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Encyclopedia of Social Work. Oxford University Press. Link
Lahat, L. and Sabah, Y. (2021) Effects of different kinds of trust and leadership on outputs of collaborative processes: the case of personal social services in Israel, International Journal of Public Sector Management, 34(3). Link
Lahat, L., & Sabah, Y. (2020). Adaptive Regulation: A Possible Model for Regulation and Innovation in Personal Social Services. Israel Studies Review, 35(3), 11-30. Link
Dr. Levy teaches the course "Theories of International Migration" (first semester, mandatory).
Levy has a PhD in sociology and anthropology from Tel Aviv University, and is a social activist. Levy’s research focuses on the integration of students from various groups in the education system. In her doctoral dissertation she is comparing Jewish and Arab schools that happen to be integrated because of external circumstances with those that are integrated for ideological reasons. This research garnered the Israeli President's Fellowship for Excellence and Scientific Innovation in 2018.
