Senior BAR Scholarships—Juniors Too
The Biblical Archaeology Society is now accepting applications for the 2017 Yigael Yadin Fellowship and Joseph Aviram Fellowship that will allow scholars to attend the annual meetings of the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR) and the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL), held in the same city each November. The 2017 meetings will be in Boston. The fellowships’ stipend of up to $2,500 each is intended to cover the cost of the winners’ travel expenses.
The Yigael Yadin Fellowship enables a “retired” senior scholar to attend and give a paper at ASOR or SBL. The fellowship honors Yigael Yadin, Israel’s most famous and distinguished archaeologist, who passed away in 1984. The Joseph Aviram Fellowship brings Israeli scholars to the United States to participate in the annual scholarly meetings of ASOR or SBL. The fellowship honors Joseph Aviram of the Israel Exploration Society (IES). Aviram, at age 100, remains president of the IES; he has been associated with the society for nearly eight decades.
Fellowships were awarded to Professor Bezalel Porten of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for his paper “Akkadian Names in Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt,” which was presented at SBL 2015; to Dina Shalem of Kinneret Academic College on the Sea of Galilee for her paper “Secondary Burial in the Chalcolithic Period: A Social Viewpoint,” at ASOR 2015; and to Shlomit Bechar, Itamar Weissbein and Shifra Weiss—all of whom are pursuing degrees at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem—for their papers at ASOR 2016. Bechar, who is working with Amnon Ben-Tor at the Tel Hazor excavations, presented a paper titled “The MB–LB Transition: Architectural Evidence from Tel Hazor.” Weissbein, working under the supervision of Yosef Garfinkel, gave the paper “The Recently Discovered Late Bronze Age Temple at Tel Lachish.” Weiss, who is also working with Garfinkel, presented a paper called “The Judean Shephelah in the Seventh Century B.C.E. in Light of New Results from Tel Lachish.”
Further, Mordechai (Motti) Aviam of Kinneret Academic College on the Sea of Galilee received a grant to speak in September 2016 at the Synagogue in Ancient Palestine conference, held in Helsinki, Finland. Aviam’s paper discussed supporting a regional typology of ancient synagogues in Israel.
In addition, the Biblical Archaeology Society is offering the Hershel Shanks Prize—up to $2,500—for the best paper on the Archaeology of Late Antique Judaism and the Talmudic Period presented at the 2016 annual meetings of ASOR and SBL. This prize was originally supported by a gift from Sami Rohr of Bal Harbour, Florida, who insisted on our calling it the Hershel Shanks Prize, so we called it the Hershel Shanks Prize supported by Sami Rohr. When Mr. Rohr passed away, we asked his three children if we could then change the name to the Sami Rohr Prize. They, however, wished to do just as their father would have done, and so it is now called the Hershel Shanks Prize supported by the legacy of Sami Rohr.