Shaul Kelner
Senior Fellows Coordinator
Shaul Kelner is associate professor of Sociology and Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt University. He specializes in the sociology of contemporary Jewish experience. His research analyzes how culture and politics intersect to shape Jewish life.
His newest book, A Cold War Exodus: How American Activists Mobilized to Free Soviet Jews, was published by NYU Press in May 2024. His first book, Tours That Bind: Diaspora, Pilgrimage and Israeli Birthright Tourism (NYU Press), won the Association for Jewish Studies’ 2010 Jordan Schnitzer Book Award in the category of Social Science, Anthropology and Folklore and was named Honorable Mention for the American Sociological Association Culture Section’s 2011 Mary Douglas Prize for Best Book.
Prof. Kelner received his Ph.D in 2002 from the City University of New York, which he attended as a Wexner Graduate Fellow.
He has been a Fellow of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Institute for Advanced Studies and the University of Michigan’s Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies, as well as a visiting scholar in Tel Aviv University’s Department of Sociology and Anthropology.