Dr. Liat Naeh is the founder of The Suzannah Institute, and also teaches at the University of Toronto, where she was the recipient of both the 2023 and 2024 Sessional Instructor Award for Excellence in Art History, given by the Department of Visual Studies, University of Toronto, Mississauga. She is also a museum professional with extensive experience in museums in New York and Israel.

Following her PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2018), in 2018-2019, Liat held an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Bard Graduate Center, both in New York.

At The Suzanna, Liat teaches about the art and archaeology of the ancient East during the Bronze and Iron Ages, specializing in the ancient Levant during the Bronze and Iron Ages, the time of the biblical Canaanites and Israelites.

Her award-winning research, popular writing, op-eds, award-winning literary work, and professional interviews have been published or featured on such platforms as American Journal of Archaeology, Live Science, Smithsonian Magazine, Granta, Haaretz, YNET, and Bryn Mawr Classical Review, among others. Liat is also a published, award-winning poet in her native language of Hebrew.

Enroll in Liat’s current course, Biblical Treasures.

Photo by Uriah Naeh

Dr. Meirav Jones is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at McMaster University and a Fellow of the Kogod Research Center at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. She received her PhD in Political Science from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2013 and has since held research and teaching positions at the University of Pennsylvania, Yale University, Tel Aviv University, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 2022 she won a teaching award for her McMaster course, Religion and Law. Her book, England's Israel and the Foundations of Modern Political Thought, will be published in July by University of Pennsylvania Press. Her research examines the intersection between traditional Jewish and religious sources and political and legal thought, recovering religious roots of secular legal and political ideas, and critically approaching the secular establishment with a rethinking of the role of religion at its foundations. Her work has been published in such outlets as Journal of the History of Ideas, History of Political Thought, and Review of International Studies, and she is currently engaged in a critical rethinking of Jewish sovereignty and Westphalian sovereignty, in tandem, towards a constructive contribution to post-sovereign thought that takes religion seriously.

Enroll in Meirav’s current course, Herzl in 2025.

Photo by Tamar Abadi

Shai Schneider-Eilat is an award-winning and critically-acclaimed Israeli poet and literary editor. Her debut poetry collection, He Was Here, I’m Sure (Helicon-Afik, 2019) won the Helicon Poetry Award, and her second book, All She Sings Rises in Smoke (The Bialik Institute, 2021), received an honorable mention by The Israeli President’s Wife Poetry Prize. Her most recent volume, Short Play (The Bialik Institute, 2024) is the recipient of the prestigious Haim Goury Poetry Award. She is also a recent Bustan fellow for Arab and Jewish poets, granted by the National Library of Israel. Shai holds a BFA in acting from The California Institute of The Arts, and has directed and taught theatre.

Shai’s poems have been published in numerous literary magazines and prominent newspapers, including Haaretz, Yeidoth Aharonot, Granta, Ho!, Helicon, and Moznayim, and are translated into German. She now teaches creative writing in both Hebrew and English.

Check back soon for upcoming courses with Shai.

Photo by Bar Gordon

Dr. Tamara Abramovitch is a curator, scholar, and lecturer whose work explores the intersection of art, identity, and politics from the eighteenth century to the present. She was recently appointed Curator of Photography at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, following over a decade at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem. Among the exhibtion she curated are October Sun: Four Voices from the Yom Kippur War (2023), Recollection: Dialogues with Photography (2024), Field: Gaston Zvi Ickowicz (2024), and September 11 (2021).

Tamara holds a Ph.D. in Art History from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (summa cum laude). Her doctoral research focused on the symbolic and political roles of decorative frames, with attention to issues of militarism and gender. She has published peer-reviewed articles and catalogue essays on topics ranging from French print culture and feminist art to contemporary Israeli photography and museum ethics in times of conflict. Her writing appears in journals such as Lumen, Arts, Studies in Contemporary Jewry, and Muza, and in exhibition catalogues published Internationally. Tamara teaches at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Shenkar College, and the Sam Spiegel Film & Television School. Her courses address visual and material culture, with focus on memory, gender, and materiality. Fluent in English and Hebrew, she is committed to building bridges between historical research, artistic practice, and public discourse.

Check back soon for upcoming courses with Tamara.

Photo by Yariv Fein.