Professor Yael Zerubavel is the winner of the AIS Lifetime Achievement Award for 2019. This award honors Dr. Zerubavel’s lifetime of exceptional scholarship and academic achievement in the field of Israel Studies, and recognizes that her lasting and path-breaking contributions have significantly shaped the field. Yael Zerubavel is a Professor Emerita in Jewish Studies and History at Rutgers University. She is recognized as a pioneer in the field of cultural studies, collective memory and history as applied to Israel and its Jewish traditions. Her book Recovered Roots: Collective Memory and the Making of Israeli National Tradition (U. of Chicago Press: 1995) practically launched this important discipline. Zerubavel is a prolific author who published in both English and Hebrew and the mentor of scores of graduate students. She founded the department of Jewish Studies at Rutgers University in 2000 and was the Founding Director of the Bildner Center for the Study of Jewish Life, 1996-2018.