In the Spring of 2020, The Olamot Center welcomed Dr. Emma Gashinsky. Dr. Gashinsky has earned her Ph.D. at the Department of the Arts, Ben-Gurion University (2018), with a dissertation titled “Henry Shelesnyak – Between American and Israeli Art”. She specializes in the intersection of Jewish and Israeli Identity through the lens of visual representations. Her research focuses on transculturalism, migration and Diasporic heritage in contemporary Israeli culture. Concurrently, she is working on a monograph that elaborates on her dissertation.   

Dr. Gashinsky is an adjunct fellow at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance. She was the curator of the Levin Foundation for Israeli art, Jerusalem. Her exhibition catalogue Israel: Land & Identity, was published in 2015, accompanying the show at the Jewish Federation of Cleveland, Ohio.

While at Indiana University, Dr. Gashinsky taught two undergraduate classes in the Spring of 2020:, “Israel: History, Society, Culture,” and “Seven Decades of Art in Israel”.