Dr. Shlomo Guzmen-Carmeli
Biography
Dr. Shlomo Guzmen-Carmeli is an anthropologist and tenured Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Bar-Ilan University. His research moves along two axes. The first is lived religion and Judaism in Israel, centered on the relationships between communities and religious texts. The second is the anthropology of knowledge and medical research, centered on the question of who produces knowledge and what happens when necessary research is not done. He received his PhD from Bar-Ilan University in 2015 and went on to a postdoctoral fellowship at the Tam Institute for Jewish Studies at Emory University. In 2025 he was a Visiting Scholar at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies.
In the study of religion and Judaism, he has conducted fieldwork across a wide range of contemporary Jewish settings, from a Lithuanian kollel and a secular yeshiva to a kabbalistic yeshiva and a separatist Hasidic community. His book Encounters around the Text: An Ethnography of Judaisms (Pardes, 2020; in Hebrew), which received the Bahat Grant for Outstanding Academic Manuscripts in 2017, examines how encounters with religious texts create and renew Jewish cultures. In 2021 he co-edited, with Nissan Rubin, The Power of Words: Anthropology of Jewish Textuality (Carmel, 2021; in Hebrew). With Dr. Rachel Werczberger, he led the research project "Lived Judaism in Israel: Religious and Spiritual Experiences in a Changing Society," supported by an Israel Science Foundation (ISF) Personal Research Grant (2020-2023). He is currently co-editing, with Dr. Werczberger and Prof. Ruth Illman, special issues on lived religion for Contemporary Jewry and the Journal of Contemporary Religion.
In recent years, Dr. Guzmen-Carmeli has also been studying undone science: areas of research left unfunded, incomplete, or neglected for economic, political, or other reasons. His work in this field focuses on pharmaceutical development, particularly on situations in which medical research offers no answer to a disease. In such situations, patients and their families become knowledge producers themselves. He examines this form of agency and its costs. His research also points to the need for public policy reform that would enable research in areas the market does not fund, such as natural compounds that cannot be patented.
Dr. Guzmen-Carmeli is a member of the Executive Board of the Israeli Anthropological Association. He is also active in bringing anthropology to a wider public, and is one of the editors of Behevrat HaAdam (In the Company of Man), a website devoted to anthropology in Israel and around the world, and of the project's Facebook page, which has more than 11,000 followers.
Research
Text and society
Anthropology of medical research
Ethnography of Jewish communities
Anthropology of knowledge and learning
Anthropology and sociology of religion and Judaism
Separatist communities
Ritual healing
Courses
- Ethnography of Religious Life
- Qualitative Research
- Separatist Groups and Communities
- Key Issues in Culture Studies
- Introductions to Anthropology
- Israeli society
Graduate:
Advanced Qualitative Research Methods.
Key Issues in the Study of Israeli Society.
Publications
Books (as author)
Guzmen-Carmeli, Shlomo. 2020. Encounters around the Text, Ethnography of Judaisms. Haifa: Pardes and Haifa University Press [Hebrew].
· Winner of the Bahat Grant for outstanding academic manuscripts for 2017.
· Winner of the Goldberg Grant for Culture and Literature. Jewish National Fund, 2018.
Review: Anna Prashizky, Israeli Sociology.
Review: Yair Berlin, Israel: Journal of the Study of Zionism and the State of Israel
Review: Rivka Neriya-Ben Shahar, The Issues of the Israeli Society.
Review: Shai Secunda, Jewish Review of Books.
Review: Elazar Ben-Lulu, Dor Ledor- Studies and Documentation in the History of Jewish Education.
Books (as editor)
Rubin, Nissan and Guzmen-Carmeli, Shlomo (Eds.). 2021. The Power of Words: Anthropology of Jewish Textuality. Jerusalem: Carmel Press [Hebrew].
Review: Bilu, Yoram. 2024. Israeli Sociology .
Chapters in Books
Rachel Werczberger and Shlomo Guzmen-Carmeli. 2020. "Judaism, Rituals and Practices" in Newberg, Andrew, David Yaden, Yukun Zhao and Kaiping Peng (Eds.). Religion, Spirituality and Health: A Social Scientific Approach, Vol. 5: Rituals and Practices in World Religions: A Cross-Cultural Classification. New York: Springer Academic Press.
Cooper, Samuel and Guzmen-Carmeli, Shlomo. 2021. “Towards a Jewish cultural grammar.” In Rubin, Nissan and Guzmen-Carmeli, Shlomo (Eds.). The Power of Words: Anthropology of Jewish Textuality. Jerusalem: Carmel Press [Hebrew].
Rubin, Nissan and Guzmen-Carmeli, Shlomo. 2021. “From words to deeds.” In The Power of Words: Anthropology of Jewish Textuality. Jerusalem: Carmel Press [Hebrew].
Guzmen-Carmeli, Shlomo. 2021. "The Text between Preservation and Change" in Haim Hazan, Rachel Sharabi, and Inbal Sikurel (eds.) Between Times, Ritual and Text in a Changing Society. Jerusalem: Carmel Press [Hebrew].
Cooper, Samuel and Guzmen-Carmeli, Shlomo. 2021. “Anthropological Perspective on the Biblical story of Joseph” in Haim Hazan, Rachel Sharabi, and Inbal Sikurel (eds.) Between Times, Ritual and Text in a Changing Society. Jerusalem: Carmel Press [Hebrew].
Guzmen-Carmeli, Shlomo. 2022. “We also learn in a yeshiva: Ethnography in a secular yeshiva in Tel Aviv.” in Monterscu Daniel and Werczberger Rachel (eds.) Jewish Revival Inside Out: Remaking Jewishness in a Post-Secular Age. The Raphael Patai Series in Jewish Folklore and Anthropology, Wayne University Press.
Articles in refereed journals
Guzmen-Carmeli, Shlomo. 2013. "With God's Help, the Holy Land Will Tremble: Street Demonstrations by the Ultra-Orthodox as Cultural Performance.” Democratic Culture 15: 31-59 [Hebrew].
Sharabi, Asaf and Guzmen-Carmeli, Shlomo. 2013. "The Teshuva Bargain: Healing Ritual Performances at Rabbi Amnon Yitzchak's Rallies." Journal of Ritual Studies 27 (2): 97-110.
Guzmen-Carmeli, Shlomo and Sharabi, Asaf. 2014. "The Holy Contract: The Social Contract of the Toldos Aharon Hasidic Dynasty.” Social Compass 61 (3): 290-309.
Guzmen-Carmeli, Shlomo and Rubin, Nissan. 2014. "’Tikkun' (Divine Repair) and Healing in a Kabbalistic Yeshiva: Using Sacred Texts as Instrumental Devices." Contemporary Jewry 34 (3): 217-241.
Guzmen-Carmeli, Shlomo and Sharabi, Asaf. 2019. "Textual Healing, Tailor Made Kabbalistic Therapeutics" Anthropology & Medicine 26 (2): 244-258.
Cooper, Samuel and Guzmen-Carmeli, Shlomo. 2020. The Structure of Change: A Structural Interpretation of the Biblical Story of Joseph. Religions, 11 (1), 8.
Guzmen-Carmeli, Shlomo. 2020. Eating the Bubbe: Culinary encounters between secular and haredi jews in Bnei Brak. Food and Foodways, 28 (2): 69-90.
Guzmen-Carmeli, Shlomo. 2020. Texts as Places, Texts as Mirrors: Anthropology of Judaisms and Jewish Textuality. Contemporary Jewry 40 (3): 471- 492.
Guzmen-Carmeli, Shlomo. 2020. "Not just a Rabbi's Blessing," Deep Healing in a Traditional Kabbalistic Yeshiva. Studies in Judaism, Humanities, and the Social Sciences 3 (1): 207-222 [Hebrew].
Friedman, Tammar and Guzmen-Carmeli, Shlomo. 2022. Lived Atheism and Post-Rationality in the Lives of Jewish Atheists in Israel. Iyunim: Multidisciplinary Studies in Israeli and Modern Jewish Society (38): 228-252 [Hebrew].
Guzmen-Carmeli, Shlomo and David A. Rier. 2023. Entrepreneurial treatment activism for undone science: mannitol and Parkinson’s disease. BioSocieties (18): 128–155.
*The article won the Outstanding Article Award of the Israeli Sociological Association for 2021 (second place).
Fuchs, Ofira; Werczberger, Rachel and Shlomo Guzmen-Carmeli. 2024. “Not Being Counted”: Women's Place and Religious Space in Jewish Orthodox Communities During the COVID‐19 Crisis. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 63(1): 181-195.
Cooper, Samuel and Guzmen-Carmeli, Shlomo. 2024. Inventing Culture: Structure and Symmetry in Jewish Life and Ritual. Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 23 1: 26-46.
Guzmen-Carmeli, Shlomo, Rotem Weizman, and Tammar Friedman. 2024. A Permissible Sin: Perceptions of Smoking Among Haredi Men in Israel. Journal of religion and health 63.4: 2559-2580.
Friedman, Tammar, Shlomo Guzmen-Carmeli, and Rachel Werczberger. 2025. Faithful atheists: the paradox of Jewish nonbelievers in Israel. Religion 55.1: 300-320.
Alfi-Nissan, Sari R., Shlomo Guzmen-Carmeli, and Rachel Werczberger. 2025. “The Light within Me”: celebrating the self through Jewish holidays in Israeli state education. Journal of Contemporary Religion 40 2: 239–257.
Guzmen-Carmeli, Shlomo and Leon, Nissim. 2025. The Politics of Exception: Ex-Territoriality and the Meron Disaster. Contemporary Jewry, 45 4: Article 61.
Pagis, Michal, and Guzmen-Carmeli, Shlomo. 2026. Enacting Religious Submission: Between Doing Religion and Being Done by Religion. Religion 56 2: 359–79.
Koren, Nadav, Shlomo Guzmen-Carmeli, and David A. Rier. 2026. Forced Agency: The Price of Being an Engaged Patient Managing Chronic Illness. SSM - Qualitative Research in Health 10: 100799.
Guzmen-Carmeli, Shlomo, and Rachel Werczberger. 2026. Living Text: The Multiple Lives of Tehillim in Contemporary Jewish Practice. Contemporary Jewry 46: Article 48.
Simon, Guy, Shlomo Guzmen-Carmeli, and Michal Pagis. 2026. ‘The Only Way Out Is Through’: The Flexibility and Limits of Trauma Discourse in Psychedelic Contexts. Social Science & Medicine: 119927.
Reviews of Books in periodicals
Jackie Feldman’s “A Jewish Guide in the Holy Land: How Christian Pilgrims Made Me Israeli,” Bloomington: University of Indiana Press. 2018. Megamot 52 (2): 306-309 [Hebrew].
Media
Studyfinds: Parkinson’s Patients Are Becoming Their Own Doctors, And It’s Draining Them
The Health News Express: Transforming ‘undone science’ into ‘completed science’
ראיון בתכנית שלושה שיודעים עם דודו ארז, כאן תרבות, על Undone Science
כתבה באתר בחברת האדם על Undone Science ואקטיביזם יזמי
ראיון בגל"צ עם ג'קי לוי ומוריה קור על הספר מפגשים מסביב לטקסט
ראיון בגל"צ עם ציפי גון גרוס בתכנית "ספרים רבותי ספרים" על הספר מפגשים מסביב לטקסט
Last Updated Date : 12/10/2026
