As Deputy Director, Elizabeth Stein plays a key role in enhancing the Center’s academic profile at UCLA, in the Los Angeles community, and within the global community of Israel Studies research, teaching, and programming. Elizabeth manages the Center’s academic and public-facing programming, coordinates Center-supported teaching and research in departments across UCLA, and works closely with the Center’s Faculty Advisory Committee, Community Advisory Board, visiting scholars, teaching fellows, and Goldstine Undergraduate Fellows. She is committed to encouraging and advancing the study of modern Israel at all levels of academic endeavor.

Elizabeth’s research examines Israel-diaspora relations, focusing on political attitudes and behaviors of American, French, and Canadian Jews with regard to Israel, and different patterns in how they organize politically on the topics of Israel, their government’s foreign policymaking toward Israel, and antisemitism. Her most recent research focuses on geographical patterns in American Jews’ donations to the PACs of Israel-focused political advocacy organizations across the political spectrum. Elizabeth is developing her dissertation—which was awarded Honorable Mention by the International Studies Association’s International Relations and Religion section, into a manuscript for NYU Press.

Elizabeth joined the Nazarian Center in 2023 as a Postdoctoral Fellow. In that role, she pursued her research, taught in the UCLA Department of Political Science, and led the Center’s Israel Studies Workshop Series and its Undergraduate Scholars Conference in Israel Studies.

Elizabeth is from Toronto, Canada, and holds degrees from McGill University (BA, Political Science), Haifa University (M. Sc) and Queen’s University, Canada (PhD, Political Studies). She was previously a Board Member of the Mile End Chavurah and an Executive Board Member of the Association for Canadian Jewish Studies, where she was also Managing Editor of its peer-reviewed journal, Canadian Jewish Studies / Études juives canadiennes.