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'Created Equal' - Shalem Scholar Says Bible Radical, Political
September/October 2008 | Elul/Tishri 5768/9
The High Holidays are approaching, and with them moments to reflect on purpose and progress. The Shalem Center and its scholars continue their work researching in our institutes, writing agenda-shaping and best-selling books, teaching students and addressing hundreds at conferences. With your support and encouragement, we are dedicated to exploring the most important questions facing the Jewish people, the state of Israel, and the world beyond.
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Our best wishes to you and yours for a meaningful, healthy and happy New Year.
Second Royal Seal Impression from the Biblical Period Uncovered in Shalem City of David Dig
Shalem Senior Fellow Eilat Mazar’s excavations at Jerusalem’s City of David, co-sponsored by the Ir David Foundation at a site now believed to be the location of King David's biblical palace, have unearthed a new clay seal impression bearing the name Gedaliah ben Pashur, a minister in the court of King Zedekiah (597-587/6 BCE B.C.E.). The new seal complements one found in 2005 in the same area, bearing the name of fellow minister Yehuchal, son of Shelemiyahu, son of Shovi, mentioned in the book of Jeremiah. The discovery marks the first time the seals of two figures mentioned together in the Bible have been unearthed in the same location. Click here to read the story in the Jerusalem Post:
Oxford Publishes ‘Created Equal,’ on Biblical Political Thought, by Shalem Scholar Joshua Berman
Shalem Associate Fellow Joshua Berman’s Created Equal: How the Bible Broke with Ancient Political Thought will be released by Oxford University Press this month. The book compares biblical political thought to that of other cultures of the ancient Near East. Berman contends that the Hebrew Bible ignited a political revolution, weakening traditional seats of power, and in empowering common citizens, had a dramatic impact in creating Western political thought. Berman is also a senior lecturer in Bible at Bar-Ilan University. Click here for more about Created Equal including details on a limited-time saving of 20% off the cover price:
Sharansky Receives Ronald Reagan Freedom Award, McCains Pay Tribute.
The Chairman of the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies at the Shalem Center was honored Sept. 17 at a ceremony in Washington with the prestigious Freedom Award from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation. Former first lady Nancy Reagan made the presentation. “My husband once said that Natan’s devotion to the cause of freedom was a symbol of man’s highest aspiration. His release from a Soviet gulag was one of the most rewarding events of Ronnie’s presidency,” said Reagan in a statement earlier this year announcing Sharansky's selection. Cindy McCain and U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), also spoke at the ceremony, and guests included Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I – CT.) McCain, compared her husband, Republican presidential nominee John McCain and former POW in Vietnam to Sharansky. “They both were prisoners” she said, “John McCain for serving his country, Natan Sharansky for serving his conscience.” In a videotaped message, Sen. John McCain lauded Sharansky as “a man who put everything at risk for the cause of freedom. Natan Sharansky knows what it’s like to have one’s basic freedoms denied.” Click here to see news footage of the ceremony:
Leading Mideast Analyst Ehud Ya’ari Named Senior Fellow at Adelson Institute
The Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies at the Shalem Center has announced the appointment of Ehud Ya’ari as a senior fellow. Ya’ari, a veteran Middle East journalist and analyst, will focus on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. He will also continue to serve as a senior commentator for Arab affairs on Israel television’s Channel 2 News. Institute Chairman Natan Sharansky told E-News: “Ehud Ya’ari is not only a profound and knowledgeable journalist, he’s also one of the most analytic minds in Middle Eastern affairs.” Click here to read more:
The Collapse of the Humanities
Joshua Schwartz, Director of the Ingeborg Rennert Center for Jerusalem Studies at Bar-Ilan University and former Dean of the Faculty of Jewish Studies at Bar-Ilan, has published an essay on the state of the humanities in Israel in the Israel Teachers' Union Journal 34. The essay, published on completion of his term as Dean of the Faculty, appears here in English for the first time. In it he warns that “today there is a real threat to the mere continuance of the humanities in the universities,” a situation which will lead to “ignorance, mediocrity and intolerance in every field.” Schwartz lays out a specific plan for reform and appeals for a new approach. Click here to read the article:
Yeshiva University Sets One-Year Record of $104 million Raised
Yeshiva University’s President Richard Joel has led the school in a campaign that has seen the school raise a record $104 million over the last year, including 30 gifts of $1 million or more. 56 full-time faculty positions have been added since Joel's arrival in 2003, while the recent gifts have enabled major renovations and new buildings, such as a glass-walled, 120-seat study hall constructed last year and an additional two-story, 470-seat study hall slated for construction next year. Click here to read more about YU’s campaign:
Washington Times: Israelis Bring ‘Anti-Israel Propaganda’ to US Mideast Studies Programs
Asaf Romirowsky, writing in the Washington Times, examines Israeli academics hired recently by American Middle East Studies Programs in what he calls an “attempt to appear balanced in the face of charges of anti-Israel biases.” Romirowsky argues that the new hires have been drawn from ranks of scholars “critical not only of Israeli policy, but of Israel's very existence.” The result, he argues, is “an ahistorical, one-sided interpretation of the Arab-Israeli conflict… [which] eliminates debate while providing the illusion of balance.” Click here to read the Washington Times story:
Israeli Academics Call for Palestinian Right of Return
According to reports in Israeli newspapers Ma'ariv and Makor Rishon, several prominent Israeli academics participated in a recent Tel Aviv conference organized by the Israeli group Zochrot which calls for the mass return to Israel of Palestinian refugees from 1948. Participants included Dr. Ariella Azoulay of Bar Ilan University’s Program in Visual Culture and Critical Theory, who appealed to Palestinians: “What kind of life will it be if we are sentenced to lie to our children about our memories of your expulsion or, alternatively, to tell them about it and make them hate the society that lies to them. Return. Return to live with us again. We need you!” Also participating was Dr. Uri Gordon of Israel’s Arava Institute for Environment Studies. Click here to read coverage on Zochrot’s website:
Shalem Economist Makes Headlines at Caesarea Conference
Shalem Senior Fellow Omer Moav made waves at the 16th annual Caesarea Conference. The economics event, Israel’s most prestigious, is sponsored by the Israel Democracy Institute and directed by the Minister of Finance, and brings together leading figures from government, business and the academy. Moav’s remarks were critical of demands by exporters for government subsidies, which he said would result in the Israeli taxpayer subsidizing the standard of living of foreign consumers. Moav’s remarks were reported widely on Israeli television and radio and in the press. Moav is also Associate Professor of Economics at Hebrew University. Click here to read about Omer Moav:
Michael Oren Receives New Jersey Council of Humanities Award
Shalem Senior Fellow Michael Oren’s latest work Power, Faith and Fantasy, has been named the winner of this year's Humanities Book Award by the New Jersey Council for the Humanities. Citing Oren’s “careful, detailed, and extraordinarily well documented research and, of course, the exceptional readability of the work,” the council will present the prize at their annual Awards Luncheon, October 19, in New Jersey. A recent talk by Oren at Temple Beth El in Stamford, CT focused on one of the book’s major themes, the fundamental tie that binds the United States to Israel. Click here to watch Shalom TV’s coverage of the event:
Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies Hosts Nobel Prize Laureate
The Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies recently hosted a series of prominent strategists for talks. On September 2, Professor Robert Aumann, recipient of the 2005 Nobel Prize in economics for his work on game theory, spoke to Adelson fellows and other members of the Shalem Center community on the strategic implications of his field of research in the Middle East. Other recent guests at Adelson included Anthony Cordesman of Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, who spoke on how Israel should respond to growing Iranian nuclear capabilities, and Dr. Robert P. Barnidge, Jr. of the University of Reading’s School of Law, whose talk focused on international law and terrorism. Click here to read more about the Adelson Institute:
Shalem/Princeton University Conference Attracts Newcomers to Political Hebraism Project
Co-sponsored by the Shalem quarterly Hebraic Political Studies and the Program in Judaic Studies at Princeton University, the third annual international conference, "Political Hebraism: Jewish Sources in the History of Political Thought," was held between September 7-9 at Princeton. Over 120 scholars from around the world attended three days of sessions on Hebraic political thought from the Bible to the modern West. Click here to read media coverage of the conference:
Registration Opens for Membership in Shalem Manhattan Seminar
The Shalem Center’s Manhattan Seminar offers supporters an opportunity to participate in exclusive events in New York City. As part of Shalem’s community, members have the opportunity to meet with Shalem’s scholars and participate in the founding of Israel’s first liberal arts college. This year’s activities include events with Michael Oren, Ruth Gavison, Moshe Ya’alon, Ruth Wisse, Daniel Gordis, Martin Kramer, Yossi Klein Halevi, Daniel Polisar, and more. To review the 2008-2009 Manhattan Seminar Schedule and membership details, click here:
American Jewish Grade-School Students Learn About City of David Excavations
BabagaNewz, an educational full-color monthly classroom magazine, web site, book club and teachers' guide for Jewish school students aged 9-13 has published a four-page feature, “Digging up David’s Palace.” Based on the Shalem Center’s excavation of what is believed to be King David’s palace at the City of David in Jerusalem, the attractive spread includes two pages of “Tanach as a treasure map” where students are able to retrace the steps of Shalem Senior Fellow Eilat Mazar’s real-life Indiana Jones quest to find buried treasure. Click here for a full-sized reproduction of the feature:
Answering the question: “Why not Uganda?”
In his monthly column in the weekend edition of The Jerusalem Post, Shalem Senior Vice-President Daniel Gordis voices his concern that the Israeli school system produces students who are “Jewishly illiterate.” “They can’t say anything” he writes, “about the great ideas that have long pulsed through the veins of Jewish life or about what Judaism might have to say about how one lives a life of substance and of meaning.” Israeli students, he argues, should develop a sense of “citizenship with purpose” rather than falling “innocent victims of our collective educational failure.” Click here to read the story:
Academic Department Chairs
Shalem is applying to the Israeli Council on Higher Education for a permit to open Israel’s first liberal arts college. Applications are being accepted for the following positions:
- Chairman, Economics Department;
- Chairman, Department of Philosophy, Political Theory and Religion (PPR);
- Chairman, Department of Middle East Studies.
Department Chairs will be responsible for all educational and administrative aspects of the department. A qualified candidate should have a record of academic achievement, a commitment to undergraduate education, experience in academic administration, and an ability to supervise a diverse faculty and exceptionally capable students. For more information, click here:
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
We want to hear from you. Please send comments and questions to e-news@shalem.org.il.
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