Amanda Bernstein is a Stage B PhD student. Having completed her Bachelor’s degree in Communications & Journalism and Jewish Thought; and a Master’s in Communications, Culture, and Cinema, all at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Amanda is a passionate researcher of Jewish life and Israeli culture; particularly as manifested in its cinema. Currently, Amanda is writing her doctoral dissertation, examining the narrative cinematic depictions of aliyah – Jewish immigration – and absorption in Israeli cinema, and sketching a history of the trends and tropes that have been common to the cinematic portrayals of Jewish immigrants and their offspring acclimating to life in Israel, from 1948 through 2020.
In February 2021, Amanda had an abstract accepted for the “Pluralistic Israel: Women, Minorities and Diversity” Association for Israel Studies conference. Presentation title: “Lacking a Birthplace? Israeli Cinema`s Missing Voices of Life Before Immigration”. The conference and presentation are scheduled to take place in June.
Additionally, in February 2020, Amanda had an abstract accepted for the “American Jewry and Israel: Intersections and Connections between Homelands and Diasporas” Association for Israel Studies conference. Presentation title: “Life before Aliyah: Israeli cinema’s exploration of the Jewish diaspora”. This conference was cancelled due to the covid-19 pandemic.
In May 2018 Amanda presented a paper based on her Master’s thesis at the "Gender across borders" interdisciplinary conference for research students, Department of women's and gender studies, Tel Aviv University. Presentation title: "Double oppression of the Arab woman in Intifada II Israeli and Palestinian cinema".
She works as a research assistant for Professor Raya Morag.
Research Interests
Israeli cinema
Film studies
Jewish studies
Migration studies
Gender studies
Israeli culture
Israeli history
Awards and Prizes
Department of Communications Scholarship 2021
Department of Communications Schaolarship 2020
Smart Institute Scholarship 2019
Dean’s List 2017
Dean’s List 2016
Scholarship for Academic Excellence 2016
Dean’s List 2013