Shlomo Giora Shoham

Shlomo Giora Shoham received the Israel Prize in the category of Criminology Research in 2003, one of the first two criminologists to do so along with Menachem Amir.

Personal information Shlomo Shoham was born in Lithuania in 1929 and immigrated to Israel in 1935. He is married and had a son and daughter, the former was killed in the Yom Kippur War. Following his son’s death he added Giora (his son's name) to his name.

Israel’s wars Shoham fought in the 1947–1949 Palestine war in the Neve Daniel Gush Etzion Convoy that was called upon to provide assistance for the Gush Etzion Bloc which ultimately surrendered, resulting in his capture by the Jordanians.

Education Shoham was in the first class from the Faculty of Law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem to graduate for both his Juris Doctor (JD) and PhD. He also studied Criminology at Cambridge University.

A doctoral thesis by Jean Motte dit Falisse from the Catholic University of Louvain was written about him, entitled, ‘Loi religieuse et loi morale dans la tradition juive : contribution à l’étude de la personnalité morale de délinquants juvéniles selon la théorie mytho-empirique de S.G. Shoham ’. There was also a lecture series on him by Mark Seis in 1990.

Academic foundations Shoham founded Bar-Ilan University’s Institute of Criminology. Ten years later he founded Tel Aviv University’s Department of Criminology.

Academic appointments Shoham is a teacher and scholar at the Faculty of Law in Tel Aviv University. In the past he held a wide variety of roles including: Assistant District Attorney of Jerusalem, assistant to Israel’s attorney general, a co-representative of Israel at the International Congress of Comparative Law, the Denis Carrol International Award Representative for Israel held at the meeting of the directors of Criminological Research Institutes at Council of Europe. In 1985 he was Harvard University’s Center for Jewish Studies’ visiting scholar.

Research Working with Professor Yehuda Fried, Shoham has put together a technique to treat drug addicts, investigating social deviance, detailing a unique personality theory to comprehend crime and deviation. He has published books on this, the most notable of one which was translated into many languages: The Mark of Cain.

Shoham also refined a micro-macro theory of criminology, expressed through his book Valhalla, Calvary and Auschwitz, proving a macro-criminological perspective can be applied to explain the Nazi movement and using a macro-victimological thesis, the Holocaust can be better comprehended.

Memberships Shoham is on the Cohen Committee (that deals with penal methods and criminological research). Previously, he was a member of the Australian Society of Forensic Sciences. He was elected to the board of directors of the International Society of Criminology and a Member of the Scientific Commission at the International Center of Sociological, Penal and Penitentiary Research, in Italy in 1981. He was a member of the Scientific Advisory Board, Institute of Criminology and Penology and Penitentiary Research and Studies. He sat on the Board of Directors at the Directors Research Committee for the Sociology of Deviance and Social Control. He was also a member of the research committee at the International Sociological Association Louvain, University, Belgium.

He held the role of chairman at the International Sociological Association. He was on the committee for the Classification of Prisoners in Israel. He was vice president on the Research Committee on Alienation, at the International Sociological Association.

Awards In 1975 he was the Israel recipient of the Presidential Citation for “outstanding achievement in the field of criminology” from the American Society of Criminology. Two years later he received the Sellin-Glueck Award from the American Society of Criminology. He received a Medal of Honor presented from the French prime minister for his contribution in the field of international criminology. In 1991 he received the Annual Award of the World Society of Legal Medicine, for Significant Scientific Contribution. Shoham received the Israel Prize in 2003.

Books Shoham has written many books by a slew of different publishers. Here is a list of some of the most recent ones.

Title Publisher Year Art, Crime and Madness: Gesualdo, Caravaggio, Genet Van Gogh, Artaud Sussex Academy Press 2002 The Mytho-Empiricism of Gnosticism: Triumph of the Vanquished Sussex Academy Press 2003 Art in the Authentic Domain Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2006 Art, Myth and Deviance Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2006 International Handbook of Penology & Criminal Justice CRC Press 2007 World of Light Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009 Future Intelligence Bertelsmann Foundation 2010 International Handbook of Victimology CRC Press 2010 International Handbook of Criminology CRC Press 2010 The Insatiable Gorge: An Existential View of Opiate Addiction and its Treatment de Sitter Publications 2010 To Test the Limits of Our Endurance Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010 Glory & Agony: Isaac’s Sacrifice and National Narrative Stanford University Press 2010 The Genesis of Genesis: The Myth-empiricism of Creation Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011 Torah! Torah! The Intimate Diary of Rabban Yochanan Ben-Zakkai de Sitter Publications 2011 Jojo: The Healing Dialogue de Sitter Publications 2011 The Smarter Bomb: Women and Children as Suicide Bombers Rowman & Littlefield Publishers 2011 Policing and Preventing Terrorism around the Globe de Sitter Publications 2012 The Measure of All Things: Anthropology Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2013 Moses: The Righteous Sky Gazer Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2014