Ruth Kark (Hebrew: רות קרק) is an Israeli scholar and Professor of Geography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Kark completed her B.A. at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1964. She was awarded an MA in 1972 and earned her doctorate in 1977. Her PhD thesis was on The Development of the Cities Jerusalem and Jaffa from 1840 up to the First World War (A Study in Historical Geography).
She has written and edited twenty books and over 200 articles on the history and historical geography of Palestine and Israel. Kark is noted for her work on settlement in the Land of Israel in the 19th-century and Western influences on the Holy Land. More recently, she has written about women and land ownership in traditional and modern cultures. Kark is often brought into court hearings in Israel as an expert on land disputes.
Frontier Jewish Settlement in the Negev, 1880–1948. Tel Aviv: HaKibbutz HaMeuhad Publishers, 1974. 204 pages (in Hebrew)Neighborhoods in Jerusalem — Building in New Jerusalem and Neighborhoods By-Laws. Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi Publications, 1978. 88 pages (in Hebrew)I. Amit and Ruth Kark, Yehoshua Hankin. Tel Aviv: Milo, 1996. 334 pages (in Hebrew)The Land that became Israel: Studies in historical geography, Yale University Press, 1989American Consuls in the Holy Land, 1832-1914, Wayne State University Press, 1994Helga Dudman and Ruth Kark, The American Colony, Scenes from a Jerusalem Saga. Jerusalem: Carta, 1998, 303 pagesJerusalem and its environs: quarter, neighborhoods, villages, 1800-1948, Wayne State University Press, 2001Jerusalem neighborhoods: planning and by-laws, 1855-1930, Magnes Press, Hebrew University, 1991Jaffa: A City in Evolution, 1799-1917, Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi Press, 1990The Pioneering Observation Posts in the Negev. Jerusalem: Ariel Publishing, Jerusalem, 2002 (in Hebrew)Jewish Women in Pre-State Israel: Life History, Politics, and Culture, with Margalit Shilo, Galit Hasan-Rokem, Shulamit (FRW) Reinharz, UPNE, 2008Joseph Glass and Ruth Kark, Sephardi Entrepreneurs in Eretz Israel: The Amzalak Family, 1816-1918, Hebrew University, 1991Ben-Arieh, Y. and Kark, R., eds. Israel Studies in Historical Geography. A Book Series. Jerusalem: Magnes Press (five volumes, 1989–1997; four of the volumes in press).Kark, R., ed. The Land that Became Israel. Studies in Historical Geography. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1989. 362 pagesKark, R., ed. Redemption of the Land of Eretz-Israel: Ideology and Practice. Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi Publications, 1990. 320 pages (in Hebrew)Kark, R., ed. Land and Settlement in Eretz Israel 1830–1990. Selected Papers by Prof. Ruth Kark. Jerusalem: The Land-Use Research Institute, 1995. 200 pages (in Hebrew and English)Shilo, M., Kark, R. and Hasan-Rokem, G. (eds.), Jewish Women in the Yishuv and Zionism: A Gender Perspective, Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi Press, 2001, 463 pages (in Hebrew)Articles
Kark, Ruth (Winter 1997). "Mamluk and Ottoman Cadastral Surveys and Early Mapping of Landed Properties in Palestine" (PDF). Agricultural History. 71 (1). "Not a Suffragist"?: Rachel Yanait Ben-Zvi on Women and GenderNashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies & Gender Issues, Number 7, Spring 5764/2004, pp. 128–150
