Mordechai Inbari

Motti Inbari is an American-Israeli scholar and professor of Jewish Studies at UNC Pembroke. Author of six books and editor of three, Inbari is a leading scholar of modern Jewish and Israeli studies. Inbari’s scholarship covers various topics, including Israel’s religious settlers’ movement, ultra-Orthodox Judaism, conversions in and out of Judaism and ideological change, and Jewish-Christian understanding. 
==Education==
Inbari received all his degrees from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His Master's and PhD degrees are from the Avraham Herman Research Institute of Contemporary Jewry, which is now part of the Department of Jewish History. Inbari received his PhD in 2006.
==Career==
Inbari was a fellow at The University of Florida, Brandeis University, and Duke University. Since 2009, Inbari has been a religious studies faculty at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.
 
His academic work is focused mainly on Jewish religious radicalism, especially in modern times. Inbari’s books include:
# Christian Zionism in the Twenty-First Century: American Evangelical Public Opinion on Israel (Oxford University Press, 2024) with Kirill Bumin.
# Ruth Blau: A Life of Paradox and Purpose(Indiana University Press, 2023). 
# The Making of Modern Jewish Identity: Ideological Change and Religious Conversion(Routledge, 2019) 
# Jewish Radical Ultra-Orthodoxy Confronts Modernity, Zionism, and Women’s Equality(Cambridge University Press, 2016)
# Messianic Religious Zionism Confronts Israeli Territorial Compromises (Cambridge University Press, 2012)
# Jewish Fundamentalism and the Temple Mount(SUNY, 2009).
He is also the author of: 
# The Yemenite Children Affair – Health Crisis, Ethnic Tensions, and the War Over Israel's History (2025). 
# The War of Gog and Magog: Messianism and Apocalypse in the Past and in Modern Times, Tel Aviv: Yediot Acharonot Publishers, 2001 (in Hebrew) (with David Ariel-Yoel, Maya Leibovitz, Yehoram Mazor).
# Who is a Jew in Our Days? Discussions on Jewish Identity, Tel Aviv: Yediot Acharonot Publishers, 2005 (with David Ariel-Yoel and Maya Leibovitz) (in Hebrew).
His book Ruth Blau: A Life of Purpose and Paradox was a finalist for the Concordia University Library and the Azrieli Institute of Israel Studies Best Book in Israel Studies Award. The book was also awarded the Fanya Gottesfeld Heller Center for the Study of Women in Judaism Award from Bar Ilan University and the Hadassah – Brandeis Institute Research Award. 
His Jewish Fundamentalism and the Temple Mount won the AICE Israel Studies Best Publication Award, The Ben Shemesh Best Dissertation Award for the Study of Zionism and the State of Israel, and the Excellence Award from the Francis Gunter Foundation for Research on Jerusalem and its Environs, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
==Research Interests==
Jewish-Christian Understanding
Inbari’s most current work is on Jewish-Christian understanding. Together with Kirill Bumin, they explore the public opinion of different Christian movements in the United States on Jews, Israel, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This comprehensive study has included surveys of evangelicals, Catholics, and mainline Christians in multiple different instances. The first major publication of their work is their book Christian Zionism in the Twenty-First Century: American Evangelical Public Opinion on Israel.
In addition, in 2023, Inbari and Bumin surveyed Jews in Israel and the United States to examine their spiritual beliefs and views of Christianity.
The Ultra-Orthodox Enclave: Extremism and the Women's Place
Inbari pioneered the study of the Haredi community and has authored two books on the anti-Zionist movement within the ultra-Orthodox world. His latest on Ruth Blau is an original research on Haredi women and is the first full biography of a rabbi’s wife, the Rebbetzin. Inbari also made a groundbreaking contribution to the study of religious modesty and women’s role in the Haredi enclave.
Israeli's Settler's Ideology
 
Inbari has authored two pioneering books on the ideology of the Israeli setter’s movement, with special emphasis on how messianic ideology influences the rabbinical elite. Inbari investigated how the rabbis’ messianic vision, which was boosted after the Israeli territorial expansion after the Six-Days War (1967), was confronted with Israeli territorial concessions after the Israeli-Egyptian Peace Treaty (1977), the Oslo Accords (1993-5) and the Disengagement from Gaza (2005). The territorial retreat created a fear of messianic failure and served as a cognitive dissonance to the rabbis, pushing them to greater commitment to the vision of redemption and some to even more extremism.
Inbari was the first to pay attention to the growing trend among the religious right to ascend the Temple Mount. In his award-winning doctoral dissertation, which was adopted to his book Jewish Fundamentalism and the Temple Mount, he analyzed all the forces seeking Jewish presence on the sacred Mount and their activism in light of a growing fear of messianic failure due to the Oslo Accords (1993-1995) and the Disengagement from Gaza (2005). Stronger attachment to the Temple Mount, Inbari explains, is a counter-reaction to the territorial concessions. 
Ideological Conversion
In his The Making of Modern Jewish Identity—Ideological Change and Religious Conversion, Inbari explored the process that led several Jewish leaders to make radical changes in their political views and compared this process to religious conversion. He thus concluded that these two processes, political and spiritual, are quite alike. 
==Personal Life==
Inbari grew up in Jerusalem. His father, Pinchas Inbari, was a journalist covering Middle Eastern Affairs for multiple news outlets. After graduating with his degrees, he moved with his family to the United States. He currently resides in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Category:Scholars
Category:Professors
Category:American people
Category:Hebrew University of Jerusalem alumni