On May 17–19, 2026, the Azrieli Fellows Program held the second writing retreat of the 2025–2026 academic year on the banks of the Sea of Galilee (Kinneret). The three-day retreat brought together fellows, alumni, and Visiting PhD Fellows for focused academic work.
The lake and surrounding hills provided a calm setting that supported sustained concentration, with the shoreline offering participants the chance to step away from their desks during breaks before returning to their writing.
The retreat was structured to support academic productivity through protected writing time, light structure, and peer accountability. Fellows worked intensively on articles, chapters, and proposals, with notable dedication and focus evident across the three days.
The diversity of disciplines and academic seniority present has generated rich exchanges across fields. As one participant observed, while they had not produced as many pages as planned, the depth of the discussions had advanced their thinking and opened new perspectives on their work.
Informal conversations during meals and walks went beyond standard small talk and fostered genuine professional and personal connections across cohorts and tracks. Historians among the participants offered spontaneous mini-tours of the area, sharing context on the region’s history and the successive waves of settlement around the lake.
The steering committee organized complementary activities that provided a welcome space to unwind and bond outside the writing blocks.
The retreat concluded with participants returning to their home institutions with concrete progress on their writing projects and with strengthened ties across the Azrieli academic community.
