Hila Amit studied creative writing at Tel Aviv University and holds a PhD in Gender Studies from SOAS, University of London. As an author and essayist, she writes about queerness, gender, sexuality and the complex relationships between Israeli Jews and Palestinians. Her short story collection Moving On From Bliss was awarded the Israeli Ministry of Culture Prize for Debut Writers. Her non-fiction book A Queer Way Out: The Politics of Queer Emigration from Israel won the 2019 AMEWS Book Award. 2020 saw the publication of Hebrew for All, which aims to provide access to the Hebrew language using queer and feminist methods. In 2022, her novel The Lower City was published in Hebrew.

During her fellowship, Hila Amit explores notions of a “Jewish homeland” in the face of anti-democratic processes in Israel and global anti-Semitism. She will speak with queer American Jews and examine “Jewish belonging” in the U.S. today.


Selected Awards

2021 | Hauptstadtkulturfonds – Scholarship for curating the The Middle East Union Festival, Berlin
2019 | Association for Middle East Women's Studies (AMEWS) Book Award
2016 | Israeli Ministry of Culture Prize for Debut Authors in the field of prose


Selected Publications

2022 | The Town Below. A Novel. Tel Aviv: Am Oved (Hebrew).
2022 | Hebrew for All. Haifa: Pardes.
2018 | A Queer Way Out: The Politics of Queer Emigration from Israel. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.