Elad Ben David, PhD

Elad Ben David received his Ph.D in 2023 by the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at Bar Ilan University in Israel and has received a Presidential Scholarship for his studies. His Ph.D. research deals with Da’wa (call to Islam) in America, emphasizing Muslim preachers and Islamic organizations. After his B.A graduation that focused on the far East, Elad graduated his M.A in Islamic Studies with honors, along with his graduation from Yeselzon Institute of Advanced Torah Studies, located in Bar-Ilan. Ben David is also a research associate in the Forum of Regional Thinking (FORTH), an independent Jewish and Arab research institute, and the Middle East Network Analysis Desk at Tel-Aviv University. Elad has also participated in many global academic conferences and was accepted to the Erasmus Program for the winter semester of 2021 at Trinity College in Dublin.  

In addition to his academic/research aspect, Ben David has published a poetry collection in a literary magazine (in Hebrew) and studied various languages for many years, including French, Spanish, Arabic, Persian, Japanese, and Indonesian. He attended two Polyglot Gatherings in Bratislava, Slovakia, during 2018 and 2019 was accepted to lecture at the coming Polyglot Gathering of 2022 in Poland about the Aramaic language of the Jewish Talmud. Elad is looking forward to continuing his research and lecturing activity on contemporary issues regarding Islam, such as Islamic Da’wa, Muslim minorities in the West, and comparison to other similar religions such as Judaism. Observing those changing trends and their process could shed light on important developments about Islam in the West in the -21 century in various contemporary topics and challenges.