The 49th Annual Conference of the Historical Society of Israel

The 49th Annual Conference of the Historical Society of Israel took place this year at the University of Haifa on Monday, June 15, 2026. This year’s conference was devoted to a critical and reflective examination of the field of history at the end of the first quarter of the 21st century.

This period presented historians with new challenges and unprecedented opportunities. The digital revolution, the development of artificial intelligence, the challenge to grand narratives, efforts to give voice to previously marginalized perspectives in the study of the past, changes in the structure of academia, increasing public and institutional pressures, and the growing politicization of the past, all these and more reshaped our methods of work, the questions we asked, and the ways in which we understood the past.

The conference invited a critical and creative reflection on the discipline of history itself, not only on what we studied, but on how we conducted our research, the tools we used, and the evolving meanings of our work.

In addition, during the conference, the Am Ve’Olam Prize and prizes for outstanding research papers on Jews in Islamic countries and Mizrahim in Israel were awarded.