Dr. Shlomo Guzmen-Carmeli
Biography
Dr. Shlomo Guzmen Carmeli is a senior lecturer in Bar-Ilan University's Sociology and Anthropology Department. His research fields of interest and specialization are text and society; ethnography of Jewish communities; anthropology of knowledge and learning; anthropology and sociology of religion and Judaism; anthropology of medical research; separatist communities, and ritual healing. He wrote articles on these subjects that were published in scientific forums in Israel and abroad. His book Encounters around the Text, Ethnography of Judaisms (2020) won the Bahat Grant for outstanding academic manuscripts for 2017. His research: "Lived Judaism in Israel: religious and spiritual experiences in a changing society" (with Rachel Werczberger), won the Israel Science Foundation (ISF) Personal Research Grant (2020-2023). In 2021, the book The Power of Words: Anthropology of Jewish Textuality, which he edited together with Nissan Rubin, was published by Carmel Publishing.
In recent years, Dr. Guzmen-Carmeli has also been engaged in research that locates and examines cases of Undone Science. This term refers to research left unfunded or incomplete for financial, political, and/or other reasons. In addition, Shlomo is an editor of the ‘behevrat haadam’ website (בחברת האדם) on anthropology in Israel and the world and of the project's page, which has more than 10,000 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].
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. 2023. “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.
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.
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
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
ראיון בתכנית בין השמשות (כאן 11) בהנחיית דב אלבוים
Last Updated Date : 31/01/2024
