Rivka
Neriya-Ben Shahar
![](https://katz.sas.upenn.edu/sites/default/files/styles/profile_image/public/2024-06/headshot.png?h=b446b3fe&itok=4IniaEh3)
Research Topic
Lived Religion Discourse and Practice: Relationships between the Ultra-Orthodox and the Healthcare System
Bio
Rivka Neriya-Ben Shahar is a senior lecturer at Sapir Academic College in Sderot, Israel, where she teaches courses on research methods, communication, religion, and gender. She is also a scholar at the Israel Democracy Institute. Neriya Ben-Shahar investigates mass media from the perspectives of religion and gender. Her research addresses the tensions existing between religious values and new technologies among women in Old Order Amish and ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities. This work has led to her current project which addresses ultra-Orthodox women and healthcare. She spoke recently at the Free University of Berlin and at The Hebrew University on “Haredi Perceptions and Attitudes toward Their Relationships with Rabbis and Doctors.”
Neriya-Ben Shahar received her M.A. and Ph.D. from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Selected publications
- Strictly Observant: Amish and Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Women Negotiating Media (Rutgers University Press, 2024).
- “There Are Only a Few Things That You Cannot Manage without Internet”: Realization of Capabilities through Internet (Non)Use by Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Women,” The Information Society 39.5 (2023): 296–305.