Dr. Zeev Lerer

Dr. Zeev Lerer is a senior lecturer, serving as the head of the Sociology Program at the Social Sciences School, as well as lecturing in the Gender Studies Program at Tel Aviv University. Lerer is a former senior researcher at the Social Sciences Department of the IDF. He holds an MA in Social-Organizational Psychology from Bar Ilan University, and holds a PhD in Sociology from Tel Aviv University. He specializes in applied social research, using the theoretical framework of the ‘sociology of practice’. His main academic fields of interest are ethnicity and gender in organizations, the psychology of decoding the other, military and combat sociology, and embodied cognition in soccer. Lerer teaches the courses “Sociological Theories,” “Current Sociological Issues,” “Gender and Society,” “Organizational Sociology,” and the “Decoding the Other in Daily Life” seminar.
As part of his work with the Social Sciences Department, among other things, he was responsible for research in the field of teenager motivation, combat psychology, and research concerning the integration of women in the IDF. He established and edited the academic magazine “Military Psychology,” was a member of the Committee for Defining Women’s Service in the IDF headed by Gen. Segev, and served as the chair of the Israeli Sociology Society’s “Military Sociology” section. His doctoral dissertation engaged with the relationship between the IDF’s selection system (KABA) and ethnic stratification between Mizrahis and Ashkenazis. Simultaneously, he also served as a psychologist and a Forward Fire Team Commander in the IDF Crisis Negotiation Unit, in a long line of crisis and negotiation events.
Lerer serves as a senior consultant in gender and occupational diversity matters with large public entities, and organizations engaged in the advancement of gender and ethnic equality in organizations. He was a co-founder of the “Equal in Organizations” project, a member of the Progressive Employer Award committee, and a member of Israel’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s steering committee for the encouragement of women’s integration and advancement in the workplace.
He wrote and participated in the editing of several books, including “The Psychology of Migration” (1994); “The Sociology of the People’s Army” (2009, together with Hadass Ben Eliyahu); the “Handbook of Organizational Gender Consultation and Intervention” (2019, with Hadass Ben Eliyahu; “The Ethnic Code – KABA, Mizrahis, and Ashkenazis” (2019, forthcoming).