28 Humanities Degree Programs in Israel

The Linguistics Division provides the students with a solid foundation in both theoretical and applied linguistics. Each student's program is constructed by the individual student and his/her supervisors.

The M.A. in Israel Studies Program integrates historical and contemporary perspectives and focuses on the emergence of Zionist ideology and the global Jewish people, the pre-state communities under Ottoman and British rule, and the State of Israel.

The Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences offers graduate programs leading to the Master of Arts degree in the Departments of Behavioral Sciences, Bible and Ancient Near-Eastern Studies, Hebrew Language, Hebrew Literature, History, and Philosophy.

The Faculty of Jewish Studies at Bar-Ilan University is the largest and most varied of its kind in the world and includes nine departments in the different specialties within Jewish Studies. All of these are open to students of the Multidisciplinary Department, which breaks down the traditional boundaries between the various disciplines and brings them together in a program that is rich in content and unique in its variety. Each student in the department is guided in their studies by a senior academic advisor.

Offered in a fully online format by Hebrew University’s Rothberg International School (RIS) in conjunction with the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, the M.A. in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies is an intensive, integrated program designed for students who wish to study the religion, politics, society, history, and culture of the Middle East.

The Department of Asian Studies currently offers an English-language graduate program in the China section only. The MA program includes a wide variety of courses on Chinese history, archaeology, philosophy, intellectual history, political thought, traditional China’s interaction with Asian and European cultures, as well as culture, society, and politics in traditional, modern, and contemporary China.

The teaching program is affiliated to the three Faculties: Social Sciences, Law, and Humanities. The teaching language is English. In addition to basic and methodological courses as well as simulations, obligatory to all participants, the program offers five specialization tracks over a period of two years:

This two-year M.A. program will grant you the basic tools for the scientific study of the Hebrew Bible. The program will be taught entirely in English by leading experts.

Our dynamic 3-year double-major track in Liberal Arts and English provides a broad-based education in subjects like Jewish studies, communications, and English literature. Cultivate adaptable skills in analysis, critical thinking, and communication, gaining a versatile understanding of how academic disciplines intertwine and influence each other.

Hebrew University’s Rothberg International School (RIS) offers a two-year M.A. program in the Bible and the Ancient Near East. This program focuses on contemporary Biblical studies (Hebrew scriptures) and provides grounding in both Biblical Hebrew and Akkadian, with the option to study Modern Hebrew at the beginner through advanced levels.

Since the turn of the millennium religious ideas and identities have increasingly shaped national and international politics, especially in the Middle East. This online MA program – led by Prof. Jonathan Fox, one of the world’s foremost experts in the field – provides a unique platform for understanding the role of religion in contemporary politics. We explore the potential of religions to unite and divide societies, to exacerbate conflict, or provide frameworks for peace. Whether you are planning a career in academia, policy research, diplomacy, conflict resolution, or the clergy, or whether you simply have a passion to understand the social forces that shape our world, this program is for you. This two-year, online MA program will provide you with a deep academic grounding in religious and Middle Eastern politics as well as in general political science. The program is taught entirely in English by leading experts. There are approximately six hours of online teaching each week, and the program is open to students anywhere in the world. We consider both religious politics and Middle Eastern politics important topics of study within political science. This program uniquely combines these topics, which include a broad survey of Middle Eastern politics as well as religious politics both in the Middle East and outside of the Middle East. At the same time, we provide courses that cover basic political science theory and methodology. Thus, while this course of study has a unique focus, it will also provide a broad foundation in the general discipline of political science. Bar-Ilan University’s Political Science Department is uniquely situated to provide this course of study. Its faculty is part of a 40+ year tradition of expertise and excellence in religious and Middle Eastern politics and includes world-class researchers and instructors on these topics. The department is also home to premier research centers and projects, which focus on these issues. These include the Religion and State Project, the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, the Middle East’s premier national security think tank, and the Argov Center for the Study of Israel and the Jewish People. Read more about this degree in this article.

The BA in Linguistics program at BGU is designed to provide students with a comprehensive understanding of language, including its structure, use, and acquisition. During your studies, you will explore various subfields of linguistics, such as phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. You will learn about the principles underlying language structure, how languages differ from one another, and how they change over time.

The Institute of Archaeology and the Rothberg School at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem invites students from all over the world to study the history and culture of the Land of the Bible, in the Bronze and Iron Ages, through archaeology, text, and ancient languages. The rich program incorporates both studies in the classroom and in the field, as the students are required to participate in major excavations and surveys conducted by top researchers of the Institute.

The B.A. program in linguistics in our department is designed to give students a solid background in the core areas of phonology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics, as well as in more applied areas such as psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics. Studies in the department take place in English, but this is not the only language being studied; the approach in the department is that of general linguistics which aims to study human language and the human linguistic capacity.

The Department of Jewish Philosophy (Jewish Thought and Kabbalah) in Bar-Ilan University’s Faculty of Jewish Studies is devoted to the research and teaching of all fields of Jewish philosophy from the classical period until the writing of Jewish philosophy in our days, including the study of Kabbalah and Hasidism. Special emphasis is put on the study and research of philosophical thinking, mystical contemplation, and interreligious relations. If you are interested in such fields as Jewish tradition, philosophy, and Jewish history, the Department of Jewish Philosophy invites you to participate in a fascinating, thought-provoking MA in Jewish Philosophy, which takes you into the comprehensive exploration of the world of Jewish philosophy and all its aspects while examining different approaches, discourses, and methods from a broad cultural perspective. Read this article to find out more about the program.

M.A. in Linguistics programs offer either a thesis (research) track or a non-thesis (general) track. It is two-year Programs. To expose students to current research topics in the field and engage students in academic discourse, research methodologies and critical reasoning