Visiting Faculty
Visiting Faculty 2012-2013:
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Barak Medina, Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation Visiting Professor
Medina is the the outgoing Dean of the Faculty of Law at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Medina earned his LLB, and his BA and MA in Economics from Tel-Aviv University, an LLM from Harvard Law School, and a PhD in Economics from The Hebrew University. He joined the Hebrew University Law Faculty in 2003, and served as its Dean from 2009-2012.
He has authored the authoritative book on Israeli constitutional law, and is a scholar of the economic analysis of law. His latest book, “Law, Economics, and Morality,” was published by Oxford University Press in 2010.At Berkeley, Medina will teach a seminar on Law, Economics and Morality at the Law School, and will teach Israeli constitutional law in the Legal Studies Program.
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Yaacov Yadgar, Lisa and Douglas Goldman Fund Visiting Israeli Professor
Yadgar teaches in the Department of Political Science at Bar Ilan University in Israel. Yadgar received his PhD from Bar Ilan, where he studied with Israel Prize winner Charles Liebman, leading analyst of the Israeli and American Jewish communities. Yadgar is a scholar of religious identity, politics, and culture in Israel.
His latest book, "Secularism and Religion in Jewish-Israeli Politics (2011)," focuses on the failure of the "religious vs. secular" discourse to capture accurately the complexity of Jewish identity--not least because that discourse ignores the "masortim" (traditionists) who comprise over a third of the Jewish-Israeli population.
In UC Berkeley's Political Science Department, Yadgar will teach undergraduate and graduate seminars on Israeli Political Culture and Religion in Politics, and a lecture course on Religion and Politics in Israel (Spring 2013). He will also teach "History of Zionism" in the Department of History (Fall 2012).
Leon Wiener Dow, Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation Post-Doctoral Lecturer; Post-Doctoral Fellow in Jewish Law, Robbins Collection for Civil and Religious Law, Berkeley Law
Wiener Dow received his B.A. from Princeton University, M.A. in Jewish Thought from the Hebrew University, rabbinic ordination from Rabbi David Hartman, and a PhD in philosophy from Bar Ilan University.
His research seeks to develop a philosophy of halacha (Jewish Law) based on the thought of Franz Rosenzweig. At Berkeley, Wiener Dow will teach undergraduate courses on "Modern Jewish Thought" and "Israeli Culture Through Film."
Visiting Faculty 2011-2012:
Nurit Novis-Deutsch, Richard and Rhoda Goldman Visiting Israeli Professor
Novis-Deutsch, whose research focuses on the study of identity, psychology of religion, and moral development, received her PhD in psychology from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.Her current research focuses on the religious identity of Bay Area Jews, and this year she is teaching a freshman seminar on "Jewish Collective Identity and Memory" (Jewish Studies 39E), as well as two courses, "The Israeli Experience – Explorations in Psychology of Identity," and "Psychology of Religion," in the Department of Psychology, and lecturing in History of Israel (History 100.2).
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Menachem Hofnung, 2011 Inaugural Visiting Professor in Israeli Law, Economy and Society.
Hofnung is Herbert Samuel Professor of Political Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research covers national security and civil liberties, constitutional politics and comparative political finance, and at Berkeley he taught "Democracy, Civil Liberties and National Security: Israel in Comparative Perspective," to Legal Studies and Political Science undergraduates.
Hofnung has served as President of the Israeli Law and Society Association, and a member of the National Commission on the Structure of Governmental Administration in Israel (Magidor Commission, 2006). He is the incoming President of the Association for Israel Studies.