Scienceתמר אלאור

Tamar El Or

Tamar El-Or is an Israeli sociologist and anthropologist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, known for her studies of gender, religion and knowledge among Orthodox women in Israel.

born 1955Research on ultra-Orthodox womenTrilogy on gender, religion, knowledgeAnthropology of the Israeli sandal

Occupation: sociologist, anthropologist
Education: Tel Aviv University, Bar-Ilan University

Tamar El Or was born in 1955 in Tel Aviv

Tamar El-Or was born in Tel Aviv in 1955 to Yona (Optovsky-Daum) and David Freiman. She grew up in the eastern part of the city across the Yarkon and still lives there. She attended high school at Tichon Hadash in Tel Aviv.

She earned her first two degrees at Tel Aviv University. She wrote her doctorate at Bar-Ilan University under Dafna Izraeli and Haim Hazan. The dissertation studied ultra-Orthodox women and became the book Educated and Ignorant.

Since 1992 she has taught in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the Hebrew University. From 2004 to 2007 she headed the Lafer Center for Gender Studies. She was also a research fellow at the University of Pennsylvania and a visiting professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York.

Her books on ultra-Orthodox, religious Zionist and Mizrahi religious women form a trilogy on gender, religion and knowledge. In the mid-1990s she was part of the team that founded Alma College for Hebrew Culture. Since 2008 she has studied material culture in Israel, focusing on the Israeli sandal.

Milestones in Tamar El Or's life

1955
Born in Tel Aviv.
1992
Published Educated and Ignorant and began teaching at the Hebrew University.
1998
Published Next Year, I'll Know More on religious Zionist women.
2004
Became head of the Lafer Center for Gender Studies.
2006
Published Reserved Seating on gender and ethnicity in religious life.
2014
Published a book on the anthropology of the Israeli sandal.
2024
Edited a book on the Mandate-era Tel Aviv garbage dump at Mikveh Israel.