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$600k Grant Launches Shalem Leadership Institute
November 18, 2008 | 20 Cheshvan 5769
As winter sets in, news from Jerusalem of the many and varied activities at the Shalem Center. Our scholars are publishing their work in a wide variety of academic and popular books and journals, and the public’s reaction to their work is enthusiastic and ongoing. We hope you find this edition of E-News to be interesting and informative. Please don’t hesitate to forward it to friends and family, or simply send names and email addresses to us at e-news@shalem.org.il and we’ll send them a monthly edition of E-News fresh from the server.
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Grant for $600,000 Launches Shalem Leadership Institute
Beginning this academic year, the Shalem Center will offer a series of enrichment programs to Israeli high school and pre-army academy students within the framework of the newly established Shalem Leadership Institute (SLI). The programs, which include seminars, workshops and retreats, are intended to expose students to serious textual study and discussion of political philosophy, Jewish history, and Zionist thought, and to prepare them for a life of active citizenship and leadership. The establishment of the institute was enabled by a $600,000 grant made through the Jewish Funders Network. Click here to read more about SLI:
Constitutional Scholar Ruth Gavison to Join Public Council of Shalem College
The Shalem Center has announced that Ruth Gavison, a leading constitutional scholar, holder of the Haim H. Cohn Chair in Human Rights at the Hebrew University and member of the Winograd Committee on the Second Lebanon War, will join the public council (in formation) of the planned Shalem College. Gavison is known as a brilliant jurist and an independent thinker with a distinguished record as a pioneer in the field of human rights. She is the founder and president of the Metzilah Center for Zionist, Jewish, liberal and humanistic thought. Gavison told E-News: “My involvement with the planned Shalem College comes from my desire to see a new generation of Israeli citizens and leading figures who have been nurtured in an environment conducive to excellence, both intellectually and in terms of human and Zionist values. This is a crucial project and I am pleased to be able to do my part in making sure that it succeeds.” Click here to read more about Ruth Gavison:
Shalem’s Eilat Mazar Discovers Biblical Tunnel; Features in Landmark PBS/NOVA Special
Senior Fellow Eilat Mazar, who heads Shalem’s archaeological excavations in Jerusalem’s City of David, has announced the discovery of a water tunnel dating to the 10th Century BCE. The tunnel, mentioned in the Biblical account of King David’s conquest of Jerusalem, follows on the heels of several other major discoveries connecting the site to the time of King David. Mazar will feature in this week’s landmark PBS/NOVA two hour special called “The Bible’s Buried Secrets,” to air at 8pm (EST) on Tuesday, November 18 on PBS nationwide. The show features her work in uncovering what is believed to be King David’s biblical palace. The City of David excavation is co-sponsored by the ‘Ir David Foundation.' Click here to read more about the latest findings and the broadcast:
Distinguished Fellow Moshe Ya’alon’s The Longer Shorter Way: Number One Israeli Best Seller
Adelson Institute Distinguished Fellow Gen. Moshe Ya’alon’s recently published book, The Longer Shorter Way (Yediot Aharonot, 2008, Hebrew), which was written since he joined the Shalem Center in August 2006, was published in September of this year and has remained at the top of Israel’s nonfiction best seller lists for more than a month, finishing as a number 1 best-seller in the weekly rating of the daily Ma’ariv. The book is a personal recollection and analysis of the events and decisions affecting Israel during Ya’alon’s 15-year career of public service, which culminated in his appointment as the IDF’s Chief of Staff between 2002 and 2005, and also lays out a blueprint for Israel's strategy in the coming decades. Lt. Gen (Res.) Yaalon has just announced that he is leaving the Shalem Center to enter the political arena, confirming his commitment to the future of the Jewish state, and the leadership it requires. Click here to read an advance preview of Ya’alon’s “Israel and the Palestinians: A new Strategy” from the brand new issue of Azure:
Elana Ben-Haim Named Director of Strategic Development at Shalem
The Shalem Center welcomes Elana Ben-Haim to the position of Director of Strategic Development. Ben-Haim comes to Shalem following a 20 year career in the field of management consulting -- for the last seven years with IBM Business Consulting Services in Tel Aviv. Ben-Haim told E-News: “I joined Shalem because I believe in the importance of developing Israel’s first liberal arts college dedicated to fostering a new kind of leading citizen in Israel. I saw a strong commitment to a vision that I felt was achievable, as well as conviction to build a first-class institution, and I wanted to be a part of it.” Click here to read more:
Hebrew University Ranked Among World’s Best Universities The widely respected Top-200 University rankings published by The Times Higher Education places two Israeli Universities in the world’s top 200. Hebrew University of Jerusalem ranked in 93rd place in the world, while the Haifa’s Technion finished 109th. In the humanities, the Hebrew University’s ranking rose to 41st place and Tel Aviv University finished in 80th place. As in recent years, Harvard, Yale and Cambridge led the list, which is based on rankings by experts, citations in scholarly journals, and faculty surveys. Click here for full rankings:
$14 Million Establishes Jewish Studies Programs at UCLA, City College of New York.According to reports by the JTA, Michael "Mickey" Ross, a former producer and television writer, in recent months has given some $14 million to create Jewish studies programs at UCLA and the City College of New York. His donation will establish the Michael and Irene Ross Center for Jewish Studies at City College and endow a chair in Yiddish language and literature at UCLA. As reported, Ross intends to “leave more than 90 percent of his assets to Jewish charities.” Click here to read the report:
The Economist: Book supporting Jewish State by IDC, Hebrew U Profs ‘Deserves to be Widely Heard’ The renowned professor of constitutional law Amnon Rubinstein of IDC Herzliya, together with Hebrew University professor of history Alexander Yakobson, have published a new book defending Israel character as the state of the Jewish people. According to a review in the Jerusalem Post, Israel and the Family of Nations: The Jewish Nation-State and Human Rights (Routledge 2008) “is not a traditional pro-Israel polemic… but seeks to point out that, in its basic definition and goals, Israel is well within the norms of democratic practice." An extensive review in The Economist notes that “it is an important book, whose ideas deserve to be widely heard.” Click here to read the review:
Israeli Best Seller by Tel Aviv U Historian: Jewish History Invented to Expropriate Lands When and How Was the Jewish People Invented? (Resling, 2008, Hebrew) is the title of a national best seller by Tel Aviv University historian Dr. Shlomo Sand. The book, which has been translated into French and is set to be translated into a dozen more languages, argues that “there never was a Jewish people, only a Jewish religion, and the exile also never happened -- hence there was no return.” The success of the book, which has spent more than nineteen weeks on bestseller lists in Israel, has received substantial coverage in the Arabic press in the Middle East. Click here to read the Ha’aretz review:
Ivory Towers on Sand: Martin Kramer’s Influential Work Now Free, OnlineAdelson Institute Senior Fellow Martin Kramer’s influential work, Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America [Washington Institute 2001] raised a storm of debate by charging that American Middle East Studies have been hijacked by an extremist political and ideological agenda. The Jerusalem Post called it “one of the most important books about understanding the Middle East written during the last half-century," and according to the Washington Post, it is “a case study in the broader trend of the universities reduced to irrelevance by the ‘post-modern’ denial of objective truth.” Ivory Towers on Sand is now available online for download. Click here:
Critical Acclaim for Ze’ev Maghen’s Books on Islam
Two books by Shalem Senior Fellow Ze’ev Maghen are the subject of praise in the current issue of the prestigious International Journal of Middle East Studies. Maghen’s books are After Hardship Cometh Ease: Jews as Backdrop for Moslem Moderation (Berlin 2006) and Virtues of the Flesh: Passion and Purity in Early Islamic Jurisprudence (Leiden 2005). The journal calls the former as a “terrific and important book,” and the latter as a “thoroughly and forcefully” argued work. Maghen is also Chairman of Bar-Ilan University’s department of Middle Eastern Studies. Click here to read more about Ze’ev Maghen:
Breakfast for Berman’s ‘Created Equal’ This Week At the Yale Club, New York CityShalem Associate Fellow Joshua Berman, author of Created Equal: How the Bible broke with Broke with Ancient Political Thought (Oxford University Press, 2008) will be speaking about the book at a breakfast on Friday, November 21, 2008 at 08.00 am at New York’s Yale Club. Created Equal, which argues that a radically progressive political worldview is articulated in the Hebrew Bible, has received extensive praise since its publication, with Professor James Kugel, formerly of Harvard University and now the chairman of Bible Studies at Bar-Ilan University, lauding the book as "clear, invitingly written, and well argued." Click here to read Joshua Berman’s thesis on why Conservatives and Liberals are both wrong about the Bible:
President-Elect Obama’s New Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, Praises Michael Oren
In an August address in Washington, President-Elect Barack Obama’s Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, spoke on American Middle East policy. As part of his address, Emanuel praised Shalem Senior Fellow Michael Oren and his New York Times best seller “Six Days of War” (Oxford University Press, 2002) which he called “one of the better books on the Six Day War… [not to mention] his pieces in the Wall Street Journal." Click here to watch Emanuel’s address to voters:
Omer Moav Analyzes Israeli Economy on the BBC
Shalem Senior Fellow economist Omer Moav spoke recently to the BBC about Israel’s economy and the challenges it faces. Moav’s research focuses on economic growth, with an emphasis on income inequality, demography and human capital, and has appeared in leading journals of economics, such as The Quarterly Journal of Economics, The Review of Economic Studies, The American Economic Review, and others. His 2007 study on Israel’s “brain drain” aroused significant public discussion. Moav is also a professor of economics at the Hebrew University. Click here to hear Moav on the BBC:
Study by Shalem Post Doctoral Student to be Published by Rothschild ArchivesShalem Post-Doctoral Fellow Luisa Levi D’Ancona, who conducted her research on the subject of the history of Italian-Jewish philanthropy, is set to publish three significant Articles based on her research. The publications, in English and Italian, will include “Jewish Philanthropy in Italy towards Jewish and non-Jewish Refugees between the Wars,” to be published in a book edited by a four member committee at the Rothschild Archives in London, headed by Prof. David Cesarani of the University of London, on the history of Jewish philanthropy in Europe. Click here for more about Shalem’s Post-Graduate programs:
The following web addresses provide an easy to access directory of all Shalem Center sites:
The Shalem Center: www.shalemcenter.com
Azure: www.azure.org.il
Techelet: www.tchelet.org.il
The undergraduate program: www.shalemstudents.org
Hebraic Political Studies: www.hpstudies.org
Daniel Gordis: www.danielgordis.org
Michael Oren: www.michaeloren.com
IDF Lt. Gen.(Res.) Moshe Yaalon: www.mosheyaalon.com
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