Oded Lipschits

Oded Lipschits was born in 1963 in Jerusalem

Oded Lipschits was born in Jerusalem on May 15, 1963. He is married to Yael (Moreno) Lipschits, and they have 4 children. The family lives in Alon HaGalil.

He served in the IDF from 1981 to 1985 and stayed in the reserves until 2008. He left with the rank of major.

In 1985 he began studying archaeology and Jewish history at Tel Aviv University. He earned his Ph.D. in 1997 under Nadav Na'aman, with a dissertation on the Yehud province under Babylonian rule. With a Humboldt fellowship, he did postdoctoral work at the Faculty of Theology at Heidelberg University in 2002 and 2003.

He joined the Tel Aviv University faculty in 1998 and became a full professor in 2012. Since 2011 he has directed the university's Institute of Archaeology, and he founded and heads the Ancient Israel Studies program. With colleagues he has directed digs at Ramat Rachel, Azekah and Moza.

His research argues that foreign empires shaped the land from the 8th century BCE, and that parts of Judah stayed inhabited under Babylonian rule. Not all scholars accept this view. He won the EMET Prize in 2022 and was elected dean of the Faculty of Humanities in 2025.