ד"ר עמרי אשר

2019 - : Senior Lecturer, Department of Translation and Interpreting Studies, Bar-Ilan University

2018-2019: Post-Doctoral Scholar, Younes & Soraya Nazarian Center for Israel Studies, UCLA

 2016 - 2018: Kreitman Post-Doctoral fellow, The Ben-Gurion Research Institute for the Study of Israel and Zionism, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

 2015 - 2016: Post-Doctoral fellow, The Ruderman Program for American Jewish Studies, Department of Jewish History, University of Haifa

 2015 - 2018: Head of Certificate Program in Translation, Beit-Berl College

 2014 - 2016: Head of Translation Track in the Multidisciplinary Program in the Humanities, Faculty of Humanities, Tel Aviv University

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Education

2014: Ph.D. in Cultural Studies, Tel Aviv University

Dissertation: “Ideological Aspects in the Translation of Hebrew Literature in the United States and its Integration into the (Jewish) American Literary Discourse”

 2008: M.A. Summa cum laude in Literature, Tel Aviv University

Thesis: “The Influence of Stylistic Norms on the Hebrew Translation of British Humor”

 2004: B.Sc. in Computer Science, B.A. cum laude in the Multidisciplinary Program in the Humanities, Tel Aviv University

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 Fellowships and Awards

- ISF Personal Research Grant, “‘Under-the-radar’ Israeli-American Jewish exchange: Translating Religious Zionist and Modern Orthodox theology, 1990-2020,” Israel Science Foundation, 2021-2024

- Selection to Israel Science Foundation’s Forum of Young Scholars in the Humanities and Social Sciences, 2021-2022

- Bar-Ilan Rector Grant for Interdisciplinary Research Groups (with Dr. Ella Glikson), Bar-Ilan University, 2020-2022

- Post-Doctoral Fellowship, Younes & Soraya Nazarian Center for Israel Studies, UCLA, 2018-2019

- Kreitman Post-Doctoral Fellowship, Kreitman School of Advanced Graduate Studies, The Ben-Gurion Research Institute for the Study of Israel and Zionism, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, 2016-2018

- Post-Doctoral Fellowship, Ruderman Program for American Jewish Studies, University of Haifa, 2015-2016

- Hecht Prize, Herzl Institute for Research and Study of Zionism and History, University of Haifa, 2015

- Leffell Foundation Research Fellowship, Lisa and Michael Leffell Foundation, Summer 2015 and Fall 2015.

- Orgler Fellowship for Exceptional Ph.D. Students, Tel Aviv University, 2011 - 2013

- Rina Drori Scholarship for Exceptional Ph.D. Students, Tel Aviv University, 2012

- Pozis Scholarship for Exceptional M.A. Students, Tel Aviv University, 2005, 2006

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Publications

Book 

Asscher, Omri (2019). Reading Israel, Reading America: The Politics of Translation between Jews. Stanford University Press.

 

Refereed articles in peer-reviewed journals

1.     Asscher, Omri (2023). “The Decline in the Religious Zionist Negation of the Diaspora: A Translation Perspective,” Contemporary Jewry. DOI: 10.1007/s12397-022-09471-w

2.     Asscher, Omri (2023). “The Position of Machine Translation in Translation Studies: A Definitional Approach.” Translation Spaces 12:2. https://doi.org/10.1075/ts.22035.ass

3.     Glikson, Ella, and Omri Asscher (2022). “AI-mediated Apology in a Multilingual Work Context: Implications for Perceived Authenticity and Willingness to Forgive,” Computers in Human Behavior. DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2022.107592    

4.     Asscher, Omri (2023). “Israeli Publicistic Responses to Moral-Political Critique in Works by Philip Roth and Saul Bellow,” Iyunim 38, 183-208 [in Hebrew].

5.     Asscher, Omri (2022). “The Explanatory Power of Descriptive Translation Studies in the Machine Translation Era,” Perspectives. DOI: 10.1080/0907676X.2022.2136005

6.     Asscher, Omri (2022). “Language Ideology in American Jewish Thought,” Religion 52:3, 384-408.

7.     Asscher, Omri and Ella Glikson (2021). “Human Evaluations of Machine Translation in an Ethically Charged Situation,” New Media & Society. DOI: 10.1177/14614448211018833

8.     Asscher, Omri (2021). “Translation as a Probe into Homeland-Diaspora Relations,” Translation Studies 14:1, 36-50.

9.     Asscher, Omri (2020). “The American Oz: Notes on Translation and Reception,” Journal of Israeli History 38:2, 303-327.

10.     Asscher, Omri (2020). “Exporting Political Theology to the Diaspora: Translating Rabbi Kook for Modern Orthodox Consumption,” Meta 65:2, 292-311.

11.     Asscher, Omri (2020). “The Ben-Gurion-Blaustein ‘Understanding’ as a Historiographical Yardstick,” Israel Studies 25:3, 33-48.

12.     Asscher, Omri and Ofer Shiff (2020). “Diasporic Stances, Homeland Prisms: Representing Diaspora in the Homeland as Internal Negotiation of National Identity,” Diaspora Studies 13:1, 1-15.

13.     Asscher, Omri (2018). “Jewish-American Literature Makes Aliyah? Jewish/non-Jewish Boundary Maintenance, and the Israeli Approach to the Diaspora,” Jewish Social Studies 23:3, 128-159.

14.     Asscher, Omri (2018). “Israel for American Eyes: Literature on the Move, and the Mediated Repertoire of Jewish-American Identity,” AJS Review 42:1, 21-38.

15.     Asscher, Omri (2018). “’Judaism in Translation’: American Jewish Literature and Culture in Israeli Thought,” Israel 25, 109-137. [in Hebrew]

16.     Asscher, Omri (2017). “A Case for an Integrated Approach to the Mediation of National Literature,” Translation and Interpreting Studies 12:1, 24-48.

17.     Asscher, Omri (2016). “The Ideological Manipulation of Hebrew Literature in English Translation in the 1970s and 1980s,” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 15:3, 384-401.

18.     Asscher, Omri (2014). “The Integration of Translated Hebrew Literature in America: The Pre-Zionist Phase,” Studies in Israeli and Modern Jewish Society (Iyunim Bitkumat Israel) 24, 94-129. [in Hebrew]

19.     Asscher, Omri (2014). “An Anthology Editor as Israeli Ambassador to the U.S.: Ehud Ben-Ezer and Representing the Arab in Hebrew Literature to the American Reader,” Dappim: Research in Literature 19, 172-186. [in Hebrew]

20.     Asscher, Omri (2010). “A Model for Hebrew Translation of British Humor: Amplification and Overstatement,” Target: International Journal of Translation Studies 22:2, 237-263.

 

Book chapters

Asscher, Omri (forthcoming). “A Translation Hypothesis for the Development of Migration Communities into Enduring Diasporas.” In Routledge Handbook of Translation and Migration, edited by Brigid Maher, Loredana Polezzi and Rita Wilson. London and New York: Routledge.

Asscher, Omri (2013). “The Augmentation Model in the Hebrew Translation of British Humor,” in Rina Ben-Shachar and Nitsa Ben-Ari (eds.), Ha-Ivrit Safa Xaya, Volume VI, 43-61. [in Hebrew]

  

Other publications

Asscher, Omri (forthcoming). “A Translation Hypothesis for the Development of Migrant Communities into Enduring Diasporas.” In Routledge Handbook of Translation and Migration, edited by Brigid Maher, Loredana Polezzi and Rita Wilson. London and New York: Routledge.

Asscher, Omri (2021). "On two inherent ambiguities in Samuel Beckett's Murphy." [in Hebrew] https://www.newlibrary.co.il/page_18548

Asscher, Omri (2013). Review of Michael Weingrad’s “American Hebrew Literature: Writing Jewish National Identity in the United-States”. Studies in American Jewish Literature 32:2, 218-221. 

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Professional activities 

Member of organizing committee for international conferences:

 -          “Lay use and perceptions of machine translation,” The Department of Translation and Interpreting Studies, Bar-Ilan University, May 2021

-          “The Jewish world – perceptions in Israel,” The Ben-Gurion Research Institute for the Study of Israel and Zionism, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, October 2017

-          “Translators and (their) Authors”, Tel Aviv University, May 2013

 

Reviewer for grant applications: Israel Science Foundation (ISF)

 

Member of challenge call expert group: European Coordinated Research on Long-Term Challenges in Information and Communication Sciences and Technologies (CHIST-ERA).

 

Reviewer for journals: Jewish Social Studies, Journal of Jewish Languages, Diaspora Studies, Target, Journal of the Philosophy of History, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, among others.

 

 Member of research groups:

“Is there a Modern Jewish Literary Canon?” Forum of Young Scholars in the Humanities and Social Sciences under Prof. Dan Miron, Israel Science Foundation, 2021-2022

 “Israel and the Jewish World”, The Center for Israel Studies, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, 2016-2018

 “Young Scholars Forum”, The Chaim Weizmann Institute for the Study of Zionism and Israel, Tel Aviv University, 2013- 

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Teaching, selected courses

Bar-Ilan University, Department of Translation and Interpreting Studies (M.A. program):

            “Israeli-American Encounters: Jewish Identity in Translation”

            “Translation in the 21^st Century”

            “Key Issues in Translation Studies: Sociological and Linguistic Perspectives”

            “Translation: between History and Memory”

            “Academic Translation”

UCLA, Department of Comparative Literature, Nazarian Center for Israel Studies:

             “The Politics of Translation”

University of Haifa, Ruderman Program for American Jewish Studies (M.A. program), Department of Jewish History:

             “Cultural Encounters: Key Moments in the Making of Jewish American Identity”           

Tel Aviv University, Department of Literature:

            “Translation, Manipulation, Censure” (seminar)

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Membership in professional societies

 • Association for Israel Studies (AIS)

 • Association for Jewish Studies (AJS)

 • Israel Association of Applied Linguistics (ILASH)

 • European Society for Translation Studies (EST)

 • International Association for Translation and Intercultural Studies (IATIS)

 • American Translation and Interpreting Studies association (ATISA)

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Selected translations

 Books

Watt by Samuel Beckett (forthcoming, with my annotation).

Murphy by Samuel Beckett, Tel Aviv: The New Library (with my annotation), 2020.

Thinking in Tongues by Guy Deutscher, Tel Aviv: Xargol-Am Oved, 2011.

The Unfolding of Language by Guy Deutscher, Tel Aviv: Xargol-Am Oved, 2007.

Himalaya by Michael Palin, Tel Aviv: Yavne, 2006.

Game Theory: A Very Short Introduction by Ken Binmore, Tel Aviv: Aliyat Hagag-Yediot Sefarim.

 

Articles and essays

“My Israel Story: An Interim Report on a Winding Journey” by David N. Myers, Ben-Gurion Publishing Institute, forthcoming.

“Getting Up on Cold Mornings” by James Henry Leigh Hunt, in Dehak, 6, February 2016.

“Dissecting the Qumran-Essene Hypothesis,” by Edna Ullmann-Margalit, in Odyssey 4, June 2009.

  

קורות חיים