Historian · University of Haifa
Prof. Uriel Simonsohn
History, religion, and the work of building shared society.
Associate Professor in the School of Historical Studies at the University of Haifa. Founding director of the Haifa Laboratory for Religious Studies and the Frieze Center for Shared Society.
My Journey
Research and public work
I began my career as a historian of the early and medieval Islamic world. My research has examined conversion, kinship, legal traditions, and the ways Jews, Christians, and Muslims lived with—and defined themselves in relation to—one another under Islamic rule.
Understanding life across boundaries
At the heart of this work is a question that continues to preoccupy me: how do people maintain meaningful relationships across boundaries that their religious and legal traditions treat as fundamental? My work on conversion, marriage, and legal disputes asks how family obligations and communal rules pulled people in different directions.
Taking questions beyond the archive
Years spent studying these societies changed the way I understood the role of a historian. Religion, I came to see, can deepen division, but it can also provide languages of responsibility, sources of authority, and resources for social change. Living and working in Haifa made it increasingly difficult to leave these questions within the archive.
Creating platforms for action
Haifa Laboratory for Religious Studies
Connecting the study of religion with civic leadership, mediation, education, and collaborative action.
Frieze Center for Shared Society
A broader platform for research, education, policy, and public engagement across Israel’s social divisions.
Today, I work as both a historian and a scholar-practitioner. I direct both centers while continuing my research and teaching in Islamic history. The biography describes my path in more detail.
Research and Public Engagement
Kinship and Community in Early Islam
Family ties, confessional communities, law, and social belonging in the early and medieval Islamic world.
Cultural Brokerage in Pre-Modern Islam
The people, networks, knowledge, and practices that moved across cultural and religious boundaries.
Religion and Shared Society
Research, education, interfaith leadership, and practical tools for navigating diversity and polarization.
Listen & Read
Podcasts & Media
Conversations and reporting on religion, interfaith relations, historical inquiry, and building shared society.
Podcasts
חיים יחד: מסע בין־דתי אל ימי הביניים
A four-episode journey through religious plurality, conversion, and interreligious relations from the Middle Ages to the present.
Inter-faith Cooperation in a Challenging Region of the World
A conversation about Muslim–non-Muslim relations and the power of cooperation across religious divisions.
Media Appearances
Despite Vatican-Israel tensions, Catholics and Jews work to build trust in Haifa
Some good news from Israel: a new program in interreligious dialogue
Faith leaders unite in Haifa to champion religious diversity amid tensions
Research, collaboration, and public dialogue
For academic inquiries, supervision, lectures, or institutional collaboration, please get in touch.