Shaul Kelner is Professor of Jewish Studies and Sociology at Vanderbilt University, and past director of Vanderbilt’s Program in Jewish Studies. His research explores how American Jews forge solidarity with Jewish communities abroad—from Cold War campaigns to free Soviet Jews to contemporary Birthright Israel tours—and how those efforts reshape American Jewish identity and culture.

Research

His newest book, A Cold War Exodus: How American Activists Mobilized to Free Soviet Jews (NYU Press, 2024), was written with grant support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and won a National Jewish Book Award.

His first book, Tours That Bind: Diaspora, Pilgrimage and Israeli Birthright Tourism (NYU Press, 2010), won the Association for Jewish Studies’ inaugural Jordan Schnitzer Book Award and received an Honorable Mention for the American Sociological Association Culture Section’s Mary Douglas Prize.

As a sociologist, Prof. Kelner works across subfields, drawing together the study of cultural production and consumption, travel and tourism, social movements, religion, education, diaspora, and youth. An enthusiast for mixed methods, he has conducted ethnographic fieldwork, designed and analyzed surveys, published statistical and social network analyses, conducted oral history interviews, and engaged extensively in archival research.

Fellowships & Appointments

• • Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, Resident Scholar, 2025
• • Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Institute for Advanced Studies, Fellow
• • University of Michigan, Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies, Fellow
• • Tel Aviv University, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Visiting Scholar
• • Vanderbilt University, Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities, Fellow, 2017–18

Education

• • Ph.D., Sociology, CUNY Graduate Center, 2002 (Wexner Graduate Fellow)
• • B.A., Political Communication & Judaic Studies, summa cum laude, George Washington University, 1992

Service

Board member, Association for Jewish Studies and Association for the Social Scientific Study of Jewry. Chair of the selection committee for the Wexner Graduate Fellowship, which he held as a graduate student.

Teaching

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Vanderbilt’s College of Arts and Science recognized Prof. Kelner with an Award for Excellence and Innovation in Teaching. His courses include the only university course on the Soviet Jewry movement offered in the United States.