School of Health Sciences and Social Work

Profile

Dr. Yohai Hakak joined the School of Health Sciences and Social Work in October 2008. He was trained as a social worker in Israel (BSW from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and the US (MSW from Yeshiva University, NY) and practiced in the field of mental health in Israel. Simultaneously to his studies he worked as a journalist and wrote on religious communities in Israel. His doctoral dissertation from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem combined his interest in religion with his social work focus. This is an ethnographic research on masculine identities among Jewish Israeli Ultra Orthodox youth. The research is composed of field work in four different sites: religious seminaries, army basic training course, an occupational training program in Hi-Tech professions and the Jewish Ultra Orthodox headquarter at the right wing Likud party.

After submitting his Ph.D. on 2005 Yohai spent two years as a Kreitman Post-doctoral Research Fellow at the Israeli Centre for the Qualitative Research of People and Societies and the Department of Social Work at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, and another year as the Rothschild Foundation Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Department of Sociology, London School of Economics. Yohai’s post-doctoral research analyzed Jewish Ultra Orthodox guide books that are written for and about youth in an attempt to understand how the Western psychological and democratic discourses were recently integrated into this genre of writing which until recently was based solely on Jewish religious sources. As part of his post-doctoral research Yohai also co-directed and co-scripted a documentary series on the Israeli Jewish Ultra Orthodox community.

His research interests include youth, gender, religion and qualitative research methodologies.

Recent Publications

More recent publications

Books

• Hakak, Yohai (2006) Men in Black: A Journey to the Wellsprings of Israeli Politics: Haredi Men in the Likud. Jerusalem: The Israeli Institute for Democracy, (130 pages, Hebrew)

Monographs

• Hakak, Yohai (2005) Spirituality and Worldliness in Lithuanian Yeshivas. Jerusalem: The Floersheimer Institute for Policy Studies (115 pages, Hebrew)
• Hakak, Yohai (2004) Vocational Training for Ultra Orthodox Men. Jerusalem: The Floersheimer Institute for Policy Studies (140 pages, Hebrew)
• Hakak, Yohai (2003) Yeshiva Learning and Military Training: An Encounter between Two Cultural Models. Jerusalem: The Floersheimer Institute for Policy Studies (94 pages, Hebrew)

Book Chapters

• Hakak, Yohai (2005) “From the Army of God to the Israeli Armed Forces: An Interaction Between Two Cultural Models,” Gender, Religion and Change in the Middle East: Two Hundred Years of History. Eds.: Inger Marie Okkenhaug and Ingvild Flaskrud. Oxford: Berg Publishing, p: 29-45