Islah Jad (born 1951) is a tenured Assistant Professor of Gender and Development at Birzeit University. She is also the co-founder and current Director of the Institute of Women’s Studies at Birzeit and a Core Group Member of the Arab Families Working Group. A prominent figure in the Palestinian women’s movement, Jad also helped to establish the Women’s Affair Centre in Gaza and Nablus, Les Amies du Francis, the Child Corner project in el-Bireh, and the WATC (Women’s Affairs Technical Committee). Jad carried out Gender Consultancy for the United Nations Development Programme and was a co-author of the United Nation’s Arab Human Development Report of 2005. She earned a bachelor's degree in political science from Cairo University, a master's degree in political theory from the University of Nantes, and a Ph.D. in gender and development studies from the University of London. In July, 2009 Jad received AMIDEAST’s Teaching Excellence Award.
Jad, Islah. 2005. “Islamist Women of Hamas: A New Women’s Movement?” In On Shifting Ground; Muslim Women in a Global Era, edited by Fereshteh Nouraie-Simone. New York: The Feminist Press.
UNDP. Jad, Islah (core team member) and others. 2006. Arab Human Development Report, 2005: Women’s Empowerment. New York: UNDP.
Jad, Islah. 2005-2006. “Letters from Ramallah.” Bahithat 11: 206-226.
−−−. "Re-reading the British mandate in Palestine: gender and the urban rural divide through health care and education". International Journal of Middle East Studies. Cambridge Journals. 39 (3): 338–342. August 2007. doi:10.1017/S002074380707047X.
−−−. "NGOs: Between buzzwords and social movements". Development in Practice. Taylor and Francis. 17 (4-5): 622–629. August 2007. doi:10.1080/09614520701469781.
−−−. Women at the cross-roads: the Palestinian women's movement between nationalism, secularism and Islamism (Ph.D.). SOAS, University of London. 2008.
−−−. PCBS, ed. (2008), "Women and public life", Men and Women Report (pdf) (in Arabic), Ramallah, Palestine: Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS).
−−−. "The politics of group weddings in Palestine: political and gender tensions". Journal of Middle East Women's Studies. Duke University Press. 5 (3): 36–53. Fall 2009. JSTOR 10.2979/mew.2009.5.3.36. doi:10.2979/mew.2009.5.3.36.
−−−. Al–Ali, Feryal, ed. (2010), "Reflections on the Arab Human Development Report on the empowerment of women in the Arab world", Arab women: future perspectives (in Arabic), Amman, Jordan: Arab Thought Forum.
−−−. Rubenberg, Cheryl A., ed. (2010), "Islamic Jihad", Encyclopedia of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers, ISBN 9781588266866.
−−−. "The conundrums of post-Oslo Palestine: gendering Palestinian citizenship". Feminist Theory. Sage. 11 (2): 149–169. August 2010. doi:10.1177/1464700110366809.
−−−. "Islamist women of Hamas: between feminism and nationalism". Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, special issue: Complex terrains: Islam, culture and women in Asia. Taylor and Francis. 12 (2): 176–201. June 2011. doi:10.1080/14649373.2011.554647.
