A portrait of Cuisine in the Land of Israel with Ronit Vered Moderated by Nevine Abraham & Michal R. Friedman

Ronit Vered

Ronit is a researcher of food culture, a journalist, and author of food and travel books. Her column engages with local food traditions and has appeared weekly since 2007 in the Haaretz newspaper. Her articles have been published in numerous culinary magazines and books, in Israel and elsewhere. Ronit is a frequent lecturer and moderator of international panels on themes relating to cuisines and identity, food and politics, the Jewish kitchen, and the flourishing of Israeli and Palestinian cuisines. In the past few years, she has also been involved in culinary curation, creating artistic-culinary programs for cultural institutions (including the Tel Aviv university art gallery, the Jerusalem Cinematheque, and the Polish Cultural Institute). She teaches a course in Local cuisine culture at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem, and acts as senior consultant and Gallery curator at “Asif: culinary institute of Israel”.

Nevine Abraham

Principal Lecturer of Arabic Studies

Nevine’s collegiate teaching experience is in French and Arabic languages, literature and cultures. In January 2012, she began at CMU as an instructor of Online French language and taught courses on French culture, but her recent experience has been in teaching all levels of the Arabic language and developing new Arabic language and cultural courses. Besides teaching, she hold campus activities that connect Pittsburgh and Doha students every Spring semester and ones that promote learning about diversity, tolerance, and understanding of Arab culture. Past events: “Arab Cuisine, Cooking Workshop” (February 2017) and “Discover the Unexpected: Arabic-Hebrew CommUNITY” (April 2019). Upcoming events: “Reem Kassis and Mike Solomonov: A conversation on food and national identity” (April 2021) and “Mary Manassa and Andrey Kogan: The Intersections of Arabic and Hebrew Music” (April 2021).

Michal Friedman
Michal is the The Jack Buncher Endowed Chair in Jewish Studies. She specializes in Jewish Diasporic history, especially that of Sephardi and Spanish speaking Jewish communities, and in Spanish history and culture. Her research and teaching focus on the history of the place and interactions of ethnic and religious minorities in Europe, the Middle East and the Americas, as well as conceptions of diaspora and nationhood. Born in Israel and raised in Tel Aviv and New York City, she completed university studies in the US and Spain and received her Ph.D. in Jewish history at Columbia University. Prior to becoming a faculty member at CMU she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and at The Seminar in Advanced Jewish Studies at the University of Oxford.

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