Eleonore Merza

Eleonore Merza (born 1980?) is an anthropologist who studies Adygean (Circassian) diaspora communities in Israel and beyond.

Biography Merza was born in Paris circa 1980. Her father's family were Circassian, originally from Maykop in Adygea, who were forced to flee from the region in the 1860s by the Russian government. Her thesis was entitled: “Neither Jews nor Arabs in Israel: Identity of a minority in a space of war and in dialectics of negotiations - Test case of the Circassians (Adygheans) of Kfar Kama and Reyhaniya”. Whilst undertaking fieldwork for her doctoral research in Israel, Merza's dual identity became problematic with frequent interrogation by Israeli authorities about her political beliefs. Merza's postdoctoral research at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique looked the idea of occupation, in terms of those who are conscientious objectors against military service and attitudes of society towards them, as well as the economic impact of occupation for Israel.

In 2015, she and her husband Eitan Bronstein Aparicio founded the NGO De-Colonizer to try to begin to sensitise Israelis to their colonial history.

In 2018 Merza published a new work Nakba, which aims to bring the discussion of the role of the Israeli state as a coloniser back to public consciousness. Her understanding of the Nakba has contributed to other academic projects. This work is part of a trend in memory activism in Israel since 1998. Both believe that Palestinian points of view need to be understood by Israeli Jews.

Selected publications include:

Nakba (Omniscience, 2018) 'The Israeli Circassians: non-Arab Arabs', Bulletin du Centre de recherche français à Jérusalem (2012) 'Being both Non-Jewish Israelis and Non-Palestinian Muslims: Isn't it Too Much?', Bulletin du Centre de recherche français à Jérusalem (2010)

She lives in Tel Aviv and in addition to her anthropological research works as a photographer and a writer.