Shoshana Madmoni-Gerber

Shoshana Madmoni-Gerber was born and raised in Israel to parents of Yemenite descent. She has a Master’s degree in Communication and Journalism from Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and a PhD in Communication from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She has worked as a journalist in Israel for several publications including: Yediot Aharonot, Shishi, Hadashot, and Hapatish newspapers, and did research for the investigative show Uvda on Channel Two. She also worked as a researcher and diversity trainer for Adva Center for Equality of Israeli Society. Shoshana joined the faculty at Suffolk University in 2004, and has been teaching courses in Journalism, Media, and Documentary Film. She is the author of Israeli Media and the Framing of Internal Conflict (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). This book examines bias within the state of Israel and the media at large, through the lens of the news coverage of the Yemenite Babies Affair. The Yemenite Babies Affair is the emotionally laden, yet still unresolved, story of the alleged kidnapping of hundreds of Yemenite babies during transit and upon their arrival to Israel during the 1950s. In analyzing fifty years of public narratives, Shoshana argues that the media played a major role in concurrently framing and silencing this story. This study exposes the clash between the European Zionist ideology of unity, and the reality of Israel’s diverse society, where at least half of the Jewish population is of Arab descent. Shoshana is engaged regularly in giving guest lectures about her research topics in both academic settings and to the community at large in the US and in Israel. She is also part of the speaker’s bureau of the multicultural organization Bechol Lashon.