Billie Melman, Who Gave Israel Gender History, Wins Its Top Prize

Professor Billie Melman has been awarded the 2026 Israel Prize for History, according to the prize committee's published decision. The committee was chaired by Professor Daniela Weik and also included Professor Dan Orbach and Professor Iris Shagrir.

In its reasoning, the committee said the award recognised Melman's groundbreaking contribution to the study of modern social, cultural and intellectual history. It said she had opened paths for research that reconstructs the voices of women and of classes that were suppressed and excluded from historiography, and described her as a pioneer of gender history and historiography in Israel. The committee added that her work offers a multi-dimensional perspective on human experience and makes an exceptional contribution to defining modernity in the contexts of national identity and relations with the East, and that across a long career she has trained generations of historians and built a leading reputation in Israel and abroad.

Who the laureate is

Melman is Professor Emerita at the Zvi Yavetz School of Historical Studies at Tel Aviv University and holds the Henri Glasberg Chair in European Studies, according to the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, of which she is a member. The Academy records her award as the Israel Prize in general history, and describes the citation in the same terms as the committee: recovery of marginalised voices, particularly women's, and the establishment of gender history as a field within Israeli scholarship.

The committee's own summary places her work at the meeting point of social, cultural and intellectual history: how modernity came to be defined, how national identity was shaped, and how Europe understood its relationship with the East.

What the Israel Prize is

The Israel Prize is the state's highest cultural honour. It was established in 1953 by the then education minister Ben-Zion Dinur and is awarded annually at a state ceremony in Jerusalem on Independence Day, attended by the president, prime minister, Knesset speaker and president of the Supreme Court, according to reference accounts of the prize. Laureates are chosen by committees appointed each year by the education minister, and committee recommendations must be unanimous.

The committee's decision said the 2026 prizes would be presented on the eve of the state's 78th Independence Day. JNS reported that the ceremony took place in Jerusalem on 22 April 2026 with 14 laureates, and that the year's list included two newly created categories: one for young leadership and one for a unique contribution to the Jewish people, awarded to US President Donald Trump, the first non-citizen to receive the prize.

What is still unclear

The committee's statement did not name the books or articles it considered decisive, and did not say how many candidates were in contention or how the field was narrowed. It gave no prize value. It also did not set out how the general history category relates to the separate Jewish history categories awarded under the same scheme.