Educational Research

Shalva J. Weil, Senior Researcher, NCJW Research Institute for Innovation in Education, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

I was born in London, England and received my B.A. (Hons.) degree in Sociology Branch II (in those days, this meant social anthropology!) at the London School of Economics, and my M.A. and D. Phil degrees in Multi-Racial Studies and Anthropology respectively from Sussex University. In 1972, I went out to Israel to conduct fieldwork among the Bene Israel Indian Jews living in the town of Lod, and stayed on ever after (I wrote a paper on this entitled "Anthropology becomes Home: Home becomes Anthropology," in Anthony Jackson ed., Anthropology at Home, 1987). I am the mother of four children.

I began as a tenure-track lecturer in one of Israel's universities, but felt that academic work was somewhat sterile.  I joined the NCJW Research Institute for Innovation in Education at the Hebrew University in 1982, where I have worked for 25 years as Senior Researcher, which combines research with applied programs, primarily for at-risk populations. I have become an expert in the Ethiopian Jews, whom I visited many times in Ethiopia and among whom I work in Israel. I also work among Indian Jews, and have carried out fieldwork and written on other subjects like an ethnography of violence in schools, rituals, and so on.

Working as an applied anthropologist gives me tremendous satisfaction, particularly when I see the human 'successes' that I have helped create. I run an Empowerment Programme among Ethiopian Youth and brought them all to full matriculation and I currently direct a Programme for Educational Leadership for Ethiopian Jews. As Academic Coordinator of SOSTEJE (Society for the Study of Ethiopian Jews), I am co-organising a conference in Addis Abeba this autumn.

The applied research I have conducted into violence has brought me into contact with children and adults from Arab, Jewish religious and secular society, and the idea is to try and reduce violence between peoples.

However, working as an applied anthropologist is also difficult. I am forever seeking new contracts, since I gave up long ago a tenure-track, and the uncertainty is harsh. Professionally, I am in a minority, and have urged anthropologists (in “Methodological Difficulties in Studying Non-Mainstream Populations with special reference to Ethiopian Jews in Israel” Human Organisation, 1995) to break down the so-called barriers between 'theoretical' anthropology and its applied arm. I believe that the work we do must help the people we study. Even the book I recently published on India's Jewish Heritage (Mumbai: Marg 2002; 2nd edition 2004) has enhanced that tiny group's self-image, both in India and in Israel.

Recently, I have become active in the ESA (European Sociological Association). I was elected the President of the Research Network on Qualitative Methods 2005-7, and organised a mid-term on qualitative methods in Cardiff and the network's sessions in Glasgow. It is interesting how classic sociologists relate to someone who, as a social anthropologist, was brought up with participant observation. Now I have been elected to the ESA's Executive Committee and chosen to be Editor of European Sociologist.