Avi (Avraham) Sasson (Hebrew: אבי (אברהם) ששון) is an Israeli academic who serves as endowed chair of the Israel Studies Department at Ashkelon Academic College, Israel.^[1][2]

Sasson specializes in water irrigation technologies, material culture, popular religion, building technologies and the stone-lime industries in the southern Levant.^[3][4][5][6]

According to reports in Haaretz and TheMarker, Sasson undertook the survey of Palestinian orchard houses (Arabic: Bayyarat) in Tel Aviv-Jaffa.^[7][8] According to another report by Israeli news site Ynet, in 2007 Sasson initiated a historic preservation survey around Rosh HaAyin, documenting 150 historic sites, including the remains of a World War II British Armed Forces camp.^[9] Sasson has participated in community projects to protect Majdal 'Asqalan's architectural heritage, protesting damages to the town's main mosque.^[10]

According to later reports by local historian and blogger Yoav Avinion, Sasson participated in the study of Majdal Yaba's stone industries in Mandatory Palestine.^[11] Haaretz also mentioned that Sasson worked as a consultant on major urban renewal projects, including in Gush Dan, Gedera and Ashkelon.^[12][13]

In September 2023, Sasson published an edited volume commemorating 70 years to the establishment of the Israeli town of Sderot, near the Gaza Strip, just a few days before Palestinian militants overran Sderot during the opening offensive of the Israel-Hamas War.^[14] Soon thereafter, he led Zionist commemoration activities recounting the story of Samson and the Philistines near Samson's hometown of Tsor'a.^[15]

• Safrai, Zeev, and Avi Sasson. Quarrying and Quarries in the Land of Israel. Elkana (2001).
• Sasson, Avi. "Historical geography of the Palestine southern coastal plain in the late Ottoman period–the Ashkelon region as a case study." Middle Eastern Studies 55.6 (2019): 974-1004.
• Sasson, Avi, and Eliav Taub. "The Israel Antiquities Authority and Atra Kadisha." Israel Affairs 27.3 (2021): 609-623.
• Sasson, Avi. "The historical archaeology of the Jewish stone industry in the twentieth century-Migdal Zedek (Majdal Yaba) as a center of the stone industry." International Journal of Historical Archaeology 23 (2019): 609-627.
• Sasson, Avi. "The lime-burning plant at the Ali-Muntar Hill in Gaza." Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society 18 (2000): 83-103.
• Sasson, Avraham. "Spiny Burnet as Industrial Fuel in Historical Palestine: Ecology and ethnography." Landscapes 22.1 (2021): 57-79.

• Departmental webpage