Friends of ASOR is excited to announce the launch of our first archaeological tour of Israel and Palestine authority areas from arrival on February 19 to departure on March 3, 2023. ASOR is partnering with a premier touring company, Mejdi Tours, to create a custom trip for the Friends of ASOR. We will be visiting famous sites and speaking with scholars who are currently conducting archaeological projects in these regions. The 13-day tour registration page will be available on ASOR and Mejdi’s websites soon.

Participant sharing a double room: $7,500 | Participant in a single room: $9,000

Price for this tour includes a $1,000 tax-deductible donation to ASOR and supports the Friends of ASOR programming.

Price includes all accommodation, 12 breakfasts, 11 lunches, 11 dinners, 11 days of private group transportation, all tips for drivers & staff, honorariums for speakers and guides, all site/museum entrance fees, water on the bus throughout the tour, 1 map per participant, a personal headset for daily use, a licensed tour expert for the entire trip, dedicated pre-trip customer service, and on-ground support.

Tour includes 7 nights in Jerusalem, 2 nights in Galilee, 2 nights in Haifa, and 1 night in Tel Aviv – Jaffa.

Price does not include airfare, arrival/departure transport, travel and health insurance, or transportation outside of group itinerary.

The registration button will be linked with the registration page on Mejdi’s website. Registration will be available soon. Please e-mail membership@asor.org with any questions or issues.

Tour Schedule*

*subject to changes

Participant sharing a double room: $7,500 | Participant in a single room: $9,000

Price for this tour includes a $1,000 tax-deductible donation to ASOR and supports the Friends of ASOR programming.

Price includes all accommodation, 12 breakfasts, 11 lunches, 11 dinners, 11 days of private group transportation, all tips for drivers & staff, honorariums for speakers and guides, all site/museum entrance fees, water on the bus throughout the tour, 1 map per participant, a personal headset for daily use, a licensed tour expert for the entire trip, dedicated pre-trip customer service, and on-ground support.

Tour includes 7 nights in Jerusalem, 2 nights in Galilee, 2 nights in Haifa, and 1 night in Tel Aviv – Jaffa.

Price does not include airfare, arrival/departure transport, travel and health insurance, or transportation outside of group itinerary.

The registration button will be linked with the registration page on Mejdi’s website. Registration will be available soon. Please e-mail membership@asor.org with any questions or issues.

Sharon Herbert is the Charles K. Williams II Distinguished University Professor of Classical Archaeology Emerita and Research Associate at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology at the University of Michigan. Formerly, she served as the chair of the Department of Classical Studies and Director of the Interdepartmental Program in Classical Art and Archaeology at Michigan, where she has enjoyed a remarkable career as a field archaeologist, teacher, and academic administrator since she joined the Michigan faculty in 1973. She is also the former Curator of Greek and Hellenistic Collections and Director Emerita (1997-2013) of the University of Michigan’s Kelsey Museum.

Herbert’s research specialties include Hellenistic Egypt and the Near East and ancient ceramics. She is best known for her contributions to the archaeology of Israel, as director of the Tel Anafa excavations from 1978 to 1981 and as co-director of the Tel Kedesh excavations from 1997 to 2012. She has also conducted archaeological fieldwork in Greece, Italy, and Egypt.

Before assuming her position as ASOR’s President on January 1, 2020, Herbert served as ASOR Vice President from 2013-2019. Herbert also served as the President of the W. F. Albright Institute for Archaeological Research (AIAR) from 2013-2018. In November 2017, Herbert received ASOR’s W. F. Albright Service Award, in recognition of her work on behalf of the Albright.

Andrew (Andy) Vaughn became ASOR’s Executive Director in  2007. Prior to this appointment, Vaughn taught at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, MN from 1997–2007, where he was Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible and later served as Chair of Department of Religion. His teaching and research interests include cultural heritage, history, archaeology, Semitic languages, and Israelite religion. He is a past recipient of the Mitchell Dahood Prize for Biblical Scholarship, and he was a Fulbright Fellow at Tel Aviv University from 1993–94. Since 2014, Vaughn has served as Co-Director of ASOR Cultural Heritage Initiatives and overseen major heritage projects in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, and (most recently) the Sahel (Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso).

Norma Franklin is a field archaeologist who is happiest with complex stratigraphy. Other interests include ancient building techniques, water systems, and technology — old and new. Her research has focused on the three key cities of the Northern Kingdom of Israel: Samaria, Megiddo and Jezreel. She took part in the previous expedition Jezreel in 1990, directed by David Ussishkin of Tel Aviv University. In 1992 she became a founding member of the Megiddo Expedition, and served as a field archaeologist, successively directing 4 of the excavation areas. She resigned in 2011 in order to launch the Jezreel Expedition. Norma is the co-director of the Jezreel Expedition and a Research Associate at the Zinman Institute of Archaeology at the University of Haifa, Israel and an Associate Fellow of the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem.

Shlomit Bechar is a post-doctoral fellow at The Haifa Center for Mediterranean History at the University of Haifa. She also conducts ongoing research at the Institute of Archaeology at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Shlomit received her M.A. in 2012 and Ph.D. in 2019, both from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She has been digging at Tel Hazor since 2007 and became co-director of the excavations in 2015. Her book, Political Change and Material Culture in Middle to Late Bronze Age Canaan, was published in 2022 by Eisenbrauns, and she is co-author of Hazor VII and is currently co-authoring Hazor VIII.

Katia Cytryn-Silverman is Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Archaeology and Dept. of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She specializes in Islamic Archaeology and Material Culture and teaches a variety of courses, from introductions to specialized seminars, dealing with her main areas of expertise: Umayyads, Mamluks, Mosque Architecture and road archaeology. While her research on Mamluks and road archaeology goes back to her doctoral thesis, her interest on the Umayyads and early Islamic mosque architecture deepened following her ongoing archaeological projects at Khirbat al-Minya and at Tiberias, both on the western side of the Sea of Galilee.

Meir Edrey is the Professional Director & Research Associate of the Leon Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies at the University of Haifa. He is also an Adjunct Lecturer and Post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Maritime Civilizations. Meir’s research focuses on the Phoenician Culture during the first millennium B.C.E. in the Orient and the Occident, dealing specifically with issues related to Phoenician terrestrial and maritime religion and cultic practices. His recent studies include different aspects of the material culture of Tel Kabri, Tel Achziv, and the underwater site of Shavei Zion. He is also the director of the Kh. es-Suwweida Excavation Project (GIF funded).

Michael Eisenberg is a senior researcher at The Zinman Institute of Archaeology at the University of Haifa. He does research in Cultural History, Historical Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology and mainly Classical Period Archaeology. He is also the Director of the Hippos of the Decapolis Excavations Project. His other interests include military architecture, the art of fortifications, and siege warfare during the Hellenistic and Roman periods.

Adi Erlich is a researcher at the Zinman Institute of Archaeology and a senior lecturer in the departments of Art History and Archaeology at the University of Haifa. Her Ph.D. was published as a monograph, The Art of Hellenistic Palestine (Oxford 2009). She studies art and archaeology at sites in Israel from the fifth century B.C.E. to the seventh century C.E., with a focus on terracotta figurines. She is a member of the executive board of the Association for Coroplastic Studies (ACoSt) and is the director of the Beth She’arim excavations, a main Jewish town in Galilee in the Roman period.

Israel Finkelstein is a Professor Emeritus of the Archaeology of Israel in the Bronze and Iron Ages at Tel Aviv University and the Director of the School of Archaeology and Maritime Cultures at the University of Haifa. He finished his Ph.D. in 1983, taught at the University of Chicago and the Sorbonne and spent research years at Harvard and the Hebrew University. Finkelstein is the author of many books and about 250 articles. Notable among the books are The Bible Unearthed (2001), David and Solomon (with Neil Silberman, 2006), and The Forgotten Kingdom (2013). Finkelstein is co-Director of the Megiddo Expedition and the Shmunis Family Excavations at Kiriath-Jearim.

Yuval Gadot is the head of the Jacob M. Alkow Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures at Tel Aviv University. Since 2013, he has directed Tel-Aviv University excavations in the ‘City of David’ and is co-directing the “Lautenschläger Azekah Expedition.” His research in Jerusalem covers the ancient urban city and an interdisciplinary study of its rural landscape. Gadot obtained his Ph.D. in 2004 from Tel-Aviv University. Gadot’s publications include The Bronze Age Cemetery at ‘Ara (2014), Ramat Rahel III – Final Publication of Yohanan Aharoni’s Excavations at Ramat-Raḥel (2016), and the co-editing of “Rethinking Israel,” an edited volume published in honor of Prof. Israel Finkelstein (2017).

Peter Gendelman is a senior archaeologist with the Israel Antiquities Authority. Gendelman’s main research focus encompasses the area of Caesarea, a port city originally built by King Herod that served as an administrative center during the Roman Empire and the capital of a Byzantine province as well. Caesarea is considered one of the most impressive archaeological sites of Israel. As the head of excavations at Caesarea, Dr. Gendelman and his team have unearthed stunning finds like an altar dedicated to Augustus Caesar and a mother-of-pearl tablet bearing the inscription of a menorah. He also takes part in restoration and conservation efforts to preserve the area for tourists.

David Gurevich is an archaeologist as well as a former Fulbright Post-Doctoral Fellow in 2014-2015. With both an M.A. and Ph.D. in Archaeology from the University of Haifa, Dr. Gurevich’s main academic focuses include the history and archaeology of Jerusalem and Temple Mount, particularly during the Second Temple period. He has given lectures covering more modern topics as well, including geo-politics and Israel’s role in our international world. He also founded the academic program “Ambassadors Online” through Haifa University which aims to prepare Israeli students to take part in international conversations. Along with his many academic accolades, Dr. Gurevich is a licensed tour guide in Israel.

Robert Kool is a senior Curator at the Coin Department with the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA). Some of his research interests include medieval and crusader coinages and seals, as well as both the monetary and economic developmental history of Jerusalem in the Mamluk and Ottoman periods. Through the study of coinages, Kool has identified many rare finds, including a 2,000 year old silver coin that may have been minted in the Temple of Jerusalem during the Great Jewish Revolt against the Romans in the Second Temple period.

Igor Kreimerman is a lecturer in the Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research combines the use of geoarchaeology, experimental archaeology and traditional archaeological methods for the study of formation processes, especially construction and destruction, in the Bronze and Iron Age Levant. His areas of interest are the archaeology of the Bronze Age and Iron Age in Israel, ancient construction materials and techniques, architecture, urban planning, destruction by fire, the seam between archaeology and text-based disciplines. He currently serves as the director of the renewed excavations at Tel Beit Mirsim.

Zvi Lederman is a professor of archaeology at Tel Aviv University. Dr. Lederman is also the director of excavations at Tel Beth-Shemesh, a unique border site ideal for the examination of trade, communication, and interaction between the different ethnic and cultural groups that interacted with one another during the Iron Age. As a border site, Tel Beth-Shemesh reveals much information about the interplay and conflict between the local people and the Philistines. Dr. Lederman has excavated several villages and cities within Tel Beth-Shemesh that indicate conflict and rivalry between different factions.

Shelley-Anne Peleg is a specialist on cultural heritage, conservation procedures of cultural built heritage (archeological sites and historical cities) with a focus on the Old City of Akko. She is fellow researcher and lecturer in the Department of Israel Studies at the University of Haifa, and a lecturer at Kinneret College. Her Ph.D. dissertation was based on 25 years of work at the Israel Antiquities Authority. During that time, she served as the Director of the International Conservation Center – Citta’ di Roma (situated in the Old City of Akko). She established national and international curricula and training programs in practical conservation and cultural heritage studies at Akko.

Ghassan Najajra Said – description to come.

Katharina Schmidt recently accepted the post of the Director of the W.F. Albright Institute in Jerusalem in June 2022. From 2016 to 2022, she was the Director of the German Protestant Institute of Archaeology (GPIA) in Amman, Jordan. She studied Near Eastern Archaeology, Assyriology, and Pre-and Proto History at the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich (Ph.D. in 2016). Dr. Schmidt has done fieldwork throughout the Near East and Europe including Jordan, Syria, Turkey, and Germany. Since 2016, she has directed the Tall Zira´a excavation project (Jordan). She has curated a special public outreach exhibition in the Jordan National Museum and coordinated a cultural heritage project with UNESCO.

Katharina Streit is a Martin Buber postdoctoral fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. She earned her BA from the University of Oxford in 2009 and completed her MA and PhD studies at the Hebrew University. Her academic interests are pottery of the Neolithic and Chalcolithic in the southern Levant, transregional interactions, Middle and Late Bronze Age, chronology, radiocarbon dating, ceramic typology, and iconography. From 2013 to 2016, she excavated the Chalcolithic site of Ein el-Jarba as part of her Ph.D. research and her postdoctoral work. She has co-directed excavations at Tel Lachish with Felix Höflmayer as a joint Austrian-Israeli project since 2017.

Joe Uziel graduated with his Ph.D. from Bar-Ilan University in 2008. He has since worked for the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), excavating several areas in the City of David and the Western Wall Tunnels, uncovering a range of finds from the Middle Bronze Age through to the Mamluk period. Joe’s discoveries have inspired further research on the archaeology of Jerusalem, particularly relating to the Bronze and Iron Ages and Roman period. In January 2020, Joe was named head of the Dead Sea Scrolls Unit at the IAA. The Dead Sea Scroll Unit is dedicated to the conservation, curation, documentation, and research of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Sam Wolff received his Ph.D. from University of Chicago in 1986. He was Field Supervisor and later Assistant Director at the 1985-1990 excavations at Ashkelon (Israel). In 1991, he began a 25-year career as a field archaeologist at the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA). He has excavated at the Iron Age I site of Ein Hagit, the multi-period site of Tel Megadim, and the Iron Age II site at Tel Hamid, a satellite of Tel Gezer. He worked as Co-Director and photographer at the 2006-2017 excavations at Tel Gezer. Since retiring from the IAA in 2017, he has been managing the Tel Gezer laboratory.

Assaf Yasur-Landau is a professor in the Department of Maritime Civilizations at the University of Haifa, the director of the Laboratory for Coastal Archaeology and Underwater Survey, and a senior researcher at the Leon Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies. After attending Tel Aviv University for both his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees, Dr. Yasur-Landau attended Harvard University to complete his post-doctoral research. As an archaeologist interested in the connections between the Aegean and the Levant during the Bronze Age, he is involved in several archaeological projects including codirecting both the excavations at Tel Kabri and the underwater excavations at the ancient port of Tel Dor.

Irit Ziffer is an archaeologist, art historian, and the former curator of the Ceramics and Nehushtan pavilions at the Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv. She received her Ph.D. in ancient Near Eastern art from Tel Aviv University, and was an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in Art History at the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 2007-2008. Dr. Ziffer’s academic interests lie in the methods in which the ruling class utilized art and images for political purposes. She has also taught in the Department of Archaeology and ancient Near Eastern Cultures at Tel Aviv University and took part in the Aphek-Antipatris excavations from 1976-1979 and 1981-1982.