Dear ASOR Members and Friends,

I am writing today to ask you to consider a gift to ASOR before the end of the year. ASOR is leaving 2022 with a larger membership and wider reach than ever before. Our outreach efforts in cultural heritage and education continue to expand both in the U.S. and abroad. We just completed a resoundingly successful Annual Meeting in Boston, where many of you presented your fieldwork and other research in stimulating papers, posters, and workshops attended by nearly 900 participants. Members came from around the world, many for the first time thanks to travel fellowships made possible by members’ generous donations and State Department Embassy grants. ASOR now has over 100 affiliated fieldwork and publication projects in 18 countries, and our prestigious Archaeological Report Series is producing its 30th volume in as many years. Your gifts funded scholarships, fellowships, and grants for many of these programs. You enabled ASOR to award more than $222,000 in 2022.

In recent years, ASOR has been forging new partnerships in our ever changing 21st century world to broaden our investigations of the ancient world, our collective human past, and cultural heritage. We are now reaching new and underserved audiences in efforts to make ASOR’s work more accessible. These efforts range from simultaneous translation of papers to ambitious educational projects fostering community involvement from the people and scholars in the areas in which we work (see the call for such activities by Iraqi archaeologist Jaafar Jotheri in the most recent issue of our Friends of ASOR Newsletter, The Ancient Near East Today X, No. 12). Meanwhile, your support helps ASOR increase benefits to our original constituencies of biblical specialists and experts in Semitic languages and literatures. In 2023, you will see ASOR add Maarav: A Journal for the Study of the Northwest Semitic Languages and Literatures as our fourth journal. Maarav will be available for no additional charge to all ASOR members above the Associate level.

ASOR is an organization that strives to unite people and transcend ethnic, racial, and religious boundaries. We have made great strides in many areas, and with your continued help we can do much more. The secret to vibrant non-profit growth is a virtuous circle of work and support. The generous funding from you, our donors, enables ASOR to accomplish so much as an organization, but also to award member scholarships and grants for even more external research. The products of this work in turn attract more members and donors to produce and fund even more pioneering efforts. Please help to keep that circle unbroken. Give to ASOR today!

Best wishes for a safe and happy holiday season,

Sharon Herbert
ASOR President

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