Biography

Marcela Menachem Zoufalá is a scholar of Jewish and Israel Studies, currently a researcher at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague (FA CU), and Vice-Chair of the European Association of Israel Studies (EAIS). She has held fellowships and visiting positions at the Moses Mendelssohn Center for European-Jewish Studies in Potsdam, Tel Aviv University and served as Masaryk Distinguished Chair at Reichman University (IDC Herzliya). Previously, she was Director of the Prague Centre for Jewish Studies and Deputy Director of the Centre for the Study of the Holocaust and Jewish Literature, both at FA CU.

Trained as a cultural anthropologist, she earned her Ph.D. from Charles University and has led several EU-funded international research projects, including European Minorities in Urban Spaces: Mutual Recognition, Social Inclusion, and Sense of Belonging or Jews, Muslims, and Roma in the 21st Century Metropolises.

Her research focuses on antisemitism, Islamophobia, antigypsyism, transnationalism, identity and belonging, Israeli minorities, and Jewish-Muslim relations. She has published widely in academic journals, including Ethnicities, Religions, and numerous De Gruyter collective monographs. She is frequently invited to speak on contemporary Jewish life, Israel, and Jewish-Muslim relations in Europe and beyond, including by the European Commission and Czech public and international media.