Prof. Karin Carmit Yefet

Karin Carmit Yefet is an Associate Professor at the University of Haifa Faculty of Law. She is an alumna of the Israel Young Academy and the Global Young Academy, which brings together 200 of the world’s leading young scholars across all disciplines. She earned her Master’s and J.S.D. from Yale Law School as a Fulbright and Fischman Scholar, and her LL.B. and LL.M. from Bar-Ilan University, summa cum laude and valedictorian. Her award-winning scholarship in feminist legal theory and family law interrogates the intersections of religion, gender, and law, with particular emphasis on the sociolegal status of minority women. She has also written critically on the family, the military, female sexuality, and Orientalism (Mizrahi legal studies).

Prof. Yefet clerked at the Israeli Supreme Court (for the Hon. Justice Jacob Türkel), served as a senior adviser to the State Committee for investigating Israel’s adherence to International Humanitarian Law, and advised the Israeli Ministry of Justice as well as the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs on women’s rights issues, including with respect to the Report submitted to the UN Human Rights Council. She currently serves as co-editor-in-chief and founding editor of the Israel Journal of Sharia Law, and as co-director of the Legal Division of the Haifa Laboratory for Religious Studies at the University of Haifa (with Ido Shahar).

Yefet has received numerous awards for both her research and teaching. These include the Bar-Ilan University Provost’s Prize (awarded for three consecutive years), the Israel Bar Association Prize, the joint prize of the Israeli Parliament and the Committee of University Heads, the University of Haifa Provost’s Prize for Best Junior Scholar, the Cegla Prize for Best Article (Tel Aviv University), the Justice Cheshin Prize for Academic Excellence in Law (Hebrew University), the Dusty and Ettie Miller Prize for Outstanding Young Scholar (University of Haifa), the Zeltner Prize for Best Junior Scholar (Tel Aviv University), the Association for Israel Studies Early Career Award, the Israeli Sociological Society’s Best Article Award, the Gorney Prize for Best Article in Public Law by a Junior Scholar, the Society for Medicine and Law Prize for Best Article, and an Outstanding Lecturer Award.

Several of her articles have received international distinction, winning accolades in prestigious competitions such as the Harry Krause Emerging Family Law Scholars Workshop (twice), the Stanford–Penn International Junior Faculty Forum, and the University of Michigan Young Scholars’ Conference. Most notably, her article on the right to marital freedom was selected for inclusion in the esteemed Constitutional Law Series as one of the world’s “most important and influential works” on gender and constitutional law.

Yefet is also the recipient of competitive research grants from the Israel Ministry of Science and Technology, the Israel Science Foundation (twice), the Israel Institute, the Center for Jewish and Democratic Law at Bar-Ilan University, the Minerva Center for Human Rights at the Hebrew University, and the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.

  • Family law
  • Religion and the Law
  • Sexuality, gender and the law
  • Feminist legal theory
  • Mizrahi (Oriental) Legal Studies
  • Constitutional  and human rights law

Articles

Books

  • Joel Nichols and Karin Carmit Yefet eds., Research Handbook on Family Law and Religion (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2026, forthcoming)
  • The Turkel Festschrift: Studies In Theory, Philosophy And Law (Aharon Barak, Karin Carmit Yefet, Elyakim Rubinstein eds., 2020)

Book Chapters

Articles in Hebrew

  • J.S.D. (Doctor of Juridical Science), Yale Law School
  • LL.M. (Master of Laws), Yale Law School
  • LL.M., Honors program, summa cum laude (ranked 1st in class), Bar Ilan University
  • LL.B., summa cum laude (ranked 1st in class), Bar Ilan University
  • Co-Editor-in-Chief and Founding Editor of the Israel Journal of Sharia Law
  • Editor in Chief of Haifa Law Review
  • Adviser to the State Commission Appointed to Investigate the Maritime Incident of May 31, 2010
  • Member of the Yale Leadership Society (up to ten members are selected from the entire Yale student body)
  • (Former) Editor of the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism, the Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal, the Yale Law and Policy Review, the Bar Ilan Law Review, and the Ono Academic College Law Review
  • Worked at Plimpton & Debevoise, NY, USA and served as a reporter to the Institute for Transnational Arbitration (ITA) on behalf of the State of Israel
  • Clerked at the Israel Supreme Court (chambers of the Hon. Justice Jacob Türkel) and at the Dr. Jacob Weinroth & Co. Law Office