Endowed by the late Ms Sheila (Storm) Kelly, in memory of her parents, the Israel and Ione Massada Fellowships Programme offers a unique format for fostering academic partnerships. We sponsor short, collaborative visiting fellowships that promote the values of inclusivity, diversity, and cooperation – alongside academic rigour and innovation – by facilitating interchange among all disciplines, ethnicities and religions in the State of Israel and the University of Oxford.
Upcoming events
Annual Lectures & Special Events
2025 Talking Peace - Magen Inon & Hamze Awawde
2025 Talking Peace - Magen Inon & Hamze Awawde
Watch the ‘Talking Peace’ discussion
Magen Inon is a London-based father of three from Israel who is an educator and holds a PhD in philosophy of education. He has worked in various domains to cultivate liberal values and leadership skills, including with students at top universities, high-ranking military officers, promising young adults and inmates. Since the murder of his parents in the Hamas attack on Israel on 7th October 2023, Magen has become a leading voice for peace between Israelis and Palestinians within international media, local communities and the political elite.
Hamze Awawde is a Ramallah-based Palestinian peace activist and conflict resolution expert. Hamze holds a Master’s degree in global community development from the Hebrew University and a business degree from Birzeit University. Hamze’s family was displaced in 1948 and has since been heavily impacted by the ongoing violence. His grandfather was a fighter who was killed in 1978, and his cousin was recently shot by the IDF in Dura. For the last 12 years, he has been committed to leading programmes that bring Jewish Israelis and Palestinians together and believes that those directly impacted by the conflict do not have the luxury of being extremists. Hamze is the Palestinian Regional Manager at Hands of Peace and a former programme director at Yala Young Leaders.
2024 Annual Lecture - Dr Ilana Dayan
2024 Annual Lecture - Dr Ilana Dayan
Watch the 2024 Massada Annual Lecture
Dr Ilana Dayan (J.S.D. Yale Law School) is lecturer on freedom of speech law at Tel Aviv University and an esteemed journalist. She is the creator and anchor of the multiple award-winning programme ‘Uvda’ (meaning ‘fact’ in Hebrew), Israel’s leading investigative current affairs TV programme, famous for its unflinching commitment to reporting truths, even when unpopular or controversial.
At the 2024 Massada Annual Lecture, Dayan spoke about her first-hand experience of over 40 years of investigative journalism, and offered her analysis of the crucial role played by Israeli journalism in the shaping of public discourse at this time of extreme difficulty, particularly as an exemplar of fully autonomous and unrestricted free press. She also shared insights drawn from the 20 Uvda programmes aired since October 7th 2023: the day Hamas launched the attack which began the current war. Dayan’s talk was followed by audience questions and debate.
2023 Annual Lecture - David Grossman
2023 Annual Lecture - David Grossman
Watch the 2023 Massada Annual Lecture
David Grossman is a celebrated journalist and author of both adult and children’s fiction, poetry and one opera. He is a revered public figure in Israeli culture and an outspoken advocate for democracy and peaceful coexistence in the Middle East. His novels and poetry have been translated into over 30 languages and, among his many other accolades, in 2017 he was awarded the Man Booker International Prize together with his collaborator and translator, Jessica Cohen, for his novel A Horse Walks Into a Bar; in 2018, he was awarded the Israel Prize for literature, the local Nobel; and in 2022 the Erasmus Prize for ‘exceptional contributions to culture and society in Europe and the rest of the world.’
At the 2023 Massada Annual Lecture, he discussed his writing and thought with Dr Adriana Jacobs, Associate Professor and Cowley Lecturer in Modern Hebrew Literature here at the University of Oxford. Grossman then took questions from the audience.
The Massada Fund supports:
- Up to five visiting academic fellowships from Israel per annum*
- Up to three collaborative research trips per annum by Oxford fellows to Israel*
- The Massada Annual Lecture
- A Massada Junior Research Fellow (two-to-three-year post)
- A Massada Programme Director
* the ratio of these activities is decided annually by the Massada Committee.
See our activities section below for more information.
Our activities
Visiting Fellowships & video library
Collaborative research trips by Oxford fellows to Israel
The Massada Annual Lecture
Junior Research Fellowship
Massada Programme Director
Massada Committee
Programme Director & Committee
Director of the Israel & Ione Massada Fellowships Programme
Dr Naomi Rokotnitz
Dr Naomi Rokotnitz
Director of the Israel & Ione Massada Fellowships Programme
Education
MA (Cambridge), PhD (Bar-Ilan)
I read English Literature and Philosophy at the University of Cambridge (Double First-Class Honours, 1997) and received my PhD in the same fields from Bar Ilan University in 2006 (along with the Presidential Scholarship for Excellence). As Director of The Israel and Ione Massada Fellowships Programme, I promote academic interchange between scholars here, at the University of Oxford, and scholars of all disciplines, ethnicities, religions and persuasions in the State of Israel. I am also the mother of two wonderful adults.
I co-convene the Fiction and Other Minds research strand of the Oxford Comparative Criticism and Transition Programme (OCCT).
My research explores the intersections of literature, philosophy, and cognitive science, investigating how literature affects behaviour, beliefs, and conceptions of agency and authenticity; and how bodily forms of resonance contribute to the experience and communication of human understanding. Almost all my publications can be accessed online on academia.edu or ResearchGate.
Provost
David Isaac
David Isaac CBE
Provost
Education
MA (Cambridge), MA (Oxford)
After attending King Henry VIII Grammar School in Abergavenny, which became a comprehensive when he was in the third form, David went on to read Law at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He undertook postgraduate studies in Socio-Legal studies at Wolfson College, Oxford, before qualifying as a solicitor. He was a partner in Pinsent Masons LLP for many years, where he held a number of senior positions. During his career he specialised in advising clients on contract law matters and acted for HM Government and many other FTSE 100 and 250 companies.
Throughout his career David has also been involved in many other activities in the arts, human rights and education. He is the former Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Chair of Stonewall and Chair of Modern Art Oxford. He was also a director of the Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Fund, the Human Dignity Trust, the Big Lottery and 14-18 NOW. He is the current Chair of Governors at University of the Arts London and Chair of the Henry Moore Foundation.
David is a passionate supporter of the visual arts, as well as a keen mountain walker, swimmer, gardener, cook and beekeeper.
Professor of Taxation Law
Professor Tsilly Dagan
Professor Tsilly Dagan
Professor of Taxation Law
Professorial Fellow
Director of the MSc in Taxation
Education
LLB (Tel Aviv), LLM (NYU)
Tsilly Dagan is Professor of Taxation Law at Oxford University and a Fellow of Worcester College. Professor Dagan’s main fields of research and teaching are tax law and policy (both domestic and international) and the interaction of the state and the market. Her book International Tax Policy: Between Competition and Cooperation (Cambridge University Press) is the winner of the 2017 Frans Vanistendael Award for International Tax Law. Professor Dagan studied law at Tel Aviv University (LL.B., S.J.D.) and New York University (LL.M in Taxation) and joined Bar-Ilan University where she served as Associate Dean for Research as well as Editor-in-Chief of the law review and was appointed the Raoul Wallenberg Professor of Law. Professor Dagan has taught and researched as a scholar in residence at the University of Michigan, University of Western Ontario, and Columbia University, and was a member of the Group on Global Justice at the Institute of Advanced Studies, Jerusalem. She is the co-founder of the Oxford-Virginia Legal Dialogs and the International Tax Governance and Justice Workshop.
Lightbody Fellow & Tutor in History and Student Financial Aid Officer
Dr Conrad Leyser
Dr Conrad Leyser
Lightbody Fellow & Tutor in History and Student Financial Aid Officer
Clarendon Associate Professor of History
Deputy Dean of Degrees
Education
MA DPhil (Oxford)
I work on the religious and social history of western Europe and North Africa, from the fall of Rome to the rise of Latin Christendom after the first millennium. I have studied the problem of moral authority in the post-Roman West. My current project traces the relationship between institutional identity and cultural memory across the late ancient and early medieval period. In a study entitled The Myth of the Church, I plan to follow the development–slow and late–of a professional, celibate clerical hierarchy.
My immediate interests are in proposing a new view of the tenth-century Church. I am testing the hypothesis that this was an era in which bishops took advantage of the confusion occasioned by the end of the Carolingian Empire to achieve an unprecedented degree of institutional autonomy and self-definition. By marshalling (and sometimes actively forging) the authority of the early Church, late ninth- and tenth-century clerics succeeded in making of the episcopacy a career, with its own code of conduct, and the possibility of advancement.
Read the 2022-23 Annual Report
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