Welcome to my website. Here you can find some details about my academic work and read published articles and course syllabi.

I am an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Israel Studies at the University of Florida. My scholarly interests center on the processes in which ethnic and national identities are produced, re-produced and dissolved. My study of these processes focuses on socio-historical dynamics, power relations, and the juncture of culture and politics.

In my view, boundaries between disciplines in the social sciences and humanities reflect mainly political and economic interests in the academic arena and beyond it. The fortification of these boundaries reflects these interests and has mainly a negative impact on our ability to understand social phenomena.

Therefore, my work blurs the lines between various academic disciplines. Similarly I believe that social studies should be based on more than one method and thus I combine in my work both quantitative and qualitative methodologies.

My specific field of study is Israeli society and especially Israeli-Palestinian and Jewish-Arab relations in Israel. In my study on Arab soccer in Israel I illustrated how a seemingly innocent arena like sports is in effect a powerful political sphere, which has implications for ethnic, religious, civic and national identification and even political behavior. You can read some articles based on this project here, or in my book Arab Soccer in a Jewish State: The Integrative Enclave published in 2007 by Cambridge University Press.

As part of my interest in national identities and national symbols I investigated public debates held in Palestine during period of the British Mandate for a particular Palestinian flag. You can read about this study here.

In recent years I have investigated 'memory relations' between Jews and Arabs in Israel. A related article about Palestinian memorial monuments in Israel has been published in Comparative Studies in Society and History. In this article I illustrated how extrernal and internal cross-pressures have made Palestinian commemoration in Israel circuitous, vacillating, and cautious. Although intellectual and political leaders have aspired to nurture Palestinian national identity by building monuments for national martyrs, frequently this national identity has been challenged and even blurred by local and religious allegiances. I argued that the prominence of these allegiances is partly related to the attempts of many Palestinians in Israel to secure their shaky status as citizens by de-politicizing their public image. The traumatizing events of October 2000 have only partly changed these dynamics.

Recently I was awarded a Fulbright fellowship that will enable me to complete my ethnographic study in Israel, as well as to conduct a nation-wide questionnaire-based survey.