5. Oktober 2016 “Thoughts about the Origin of Life” Nobel Laureate Prof. Ada Yonath (Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel)

Nobel Laureate Prof. Ada Yonath was born in Jerusalem in 1939 to Zionist immigrants. After her father, a grocer and rabbi, died, the family moved to Tel Aviv where Ada attended Tichon Hadash High School. After military service, she entered the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, receiving a BS in chemistry in 1962 and an MS in biochemistry in 1964 before earning a PhD in X-Ray crystallography in 1968 at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot. Moving to America, Yonath worked at the Carnegie Mellon University and MIT together with F.A. Cotton. From 1979-84 she was a group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin and headed their research unit in Hamburg from 1986–2004 as well as the Mazar Center of Structural Biology (1988-2004). She has been a professor at the Weizmann Institute since 1988, heading the Kimmelman Center for Biomolecular Structure and Assembly since 1989. She has also served as visiting professor at the University of Chicago. She is a member of the US National Academy, the Israel Academy and several European Academies (France, German, Italian, Spain, UK).
Yonath has received several awards, including the first European Crystallography Prize in 2000, the Israel Prize for chemistry in 2002 and shared the Wolf Prize in Chemistry with George Feher. The 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was shared between  Ada E. Yonath, Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Thomas A. Steitz, each of whom has contributed to our knowledge of the “…structure and function of the ribosome”.

12. Mai 2016 “From Budapest to Basel: Theodor Herzl’s Way to Zionism” Prof. Derek Penslar (University of Oxford)

Prof. Derek Penslar is a comparative historian with interests in the relationship between modern Israel and diaspora Jewish societies, global nationalist movements, and post-colonial states. He is the Stanley Lewis Professor of Modern Israel Studies at the University of Oxford and the Samuel J. Zacks
Professor of Jewish History at the University of Toronto. Next year he will move to Harvard, where he has accepted the William Lee Frost Chair in Modern Jewish History. Penslar is the author or editor of ten books, including Shylock’s Children Economics and Jewish Identity in Modern Europe; Israel in History: The Jewish State in Comparative Perspective; The Origins of the State of Israel: A Documentary History, and Jews and the Military: A History. Penslar is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the American Academy for Jewish Research.

4. Mai 2016 “Vom leisen Schreiben des lauteren Worts” David Grossman im Akademietheater 

   
                                                                    © Michael Lionstar

David Grossman was born in 1954 in Jerusalem. He studied philosophy and drama at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and later worked as an editor and broadcaster at the Israel Radio Station. Grossmans oeuvre consists of novels, short stories and novellas, drama, and a number of books for children and youth. He has also published several books of non-fiction, including interviews with Palestinians and Israeli Arabs.
Among Grossman’s many literary awards:  the Bialik Prize (2004), the Koret Jewish Book Award (USA, 2006), the EMET Prize (Israel, 2007), the Geschwister Scholl Prize (Germany, 2008),  and the Man Booker International Prize for A Horse Walks into a Bar (UK, 2017). Grossman was also decorated as Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (France, 1998) and received an Honorary Doctorate from Florence University (2008). His books have been published in 35 languages.

David Grossman im Gespräch mit Heinz Sichrovsky (ORF)

21. Jänner  2016 „Politik und Erinnerung: Israel, die beiden deutschen Staaten und Österreich“  Prof. Angelika Timm (Freie Universität  Berlin, Bar-Ilan University)

Prof. Angelika Timm received a Ph. D. in the history of Palestine from Humboldt University, Berlin where she was the head of the Seminar for Israel Studies until 1998. She had a research position at the Free University in Berlin (1999 to 2002) and taught as a guest professor at the Department of Political Studies, Bar-Ilan University, Israel (2002-2007). She was the director of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation’s Israel Office 2008 – 2015.
Angelika Timm’s research fields include history and politics of Israel, including Israeli civil society, and German-Israeli relations. Amongst her central publications are Jewish Claims against East Germany: Moral Obligations and Pragmatic Policy, Budapest: Central European University Press, 1997; Hammer, Zirkel, Davidstern – Das gestörte Verhältnis der DDR zu Zionismus und Staat Israel, Bonn: Bouvier, 1997; Israel – Geschichte des Staates seit seiner Gründung, Bonn: Bouvier, 1998; Israel – Gesellschaft im Wandel, Opladen: Leske + Budrich, 2003.

2. Dezember 2015 “David Ben Gurion” Prof. Anita Shapira (Tel Aviv University)

Prof. Anita Shapira the former Ruben Merenfeld Professor in the Study of Zionism at Tel Aviv University, former dean of the faculty of Humanities at Tel Aviv University and head of the Rabin Center. She served in many public bodies, such as the Council for higher education, the claims conference, and also was the president of the Memorial foundation of Jewish culture. Shapira specializes in modern and contemporary Jewish history, especially in social and cultural history and questions of identity. She taught at the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia and the Maximilian University in Munich. She published numerous books and articles on the history of Zionism, the Jewish community in Palestine and the state of Israel. Her best-known works are “Berl Katznelson: a Biography of a Socialist Zionist” (CUP), “Land and Power, the Zionist Resort to Force, 1882-1948”(OUP and Stanford UP), „Yigal Allon: Native Son“ (Pennsylvania UP), „Yosef Hayyim Brenner, A Life Story“ (Stanford UP). Her comprehensive book „Israel: A History“ (Brandeis UP), won the National Jewish Book Award in 2012. Recently she published “Ben Gurion: The Founder of Modern Israel” (Yale UP). She won many prizes and awards. In 2008 she was awarded the Israel Prize in history.

12. Oktober 2015 “Israel and the New (Dis) order in the Middle East” Amb. Prof. Itamar Rabinovich (New York University, Tel Aviv University)

Amb. Prof. Itamar Rabinovich is founding President of the Israel Institute, a Distinguished Global Professor at New York University, and Non-Resident Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Brookings Center for Middle East Policy. He is Professor Emeritus of Middle Eastern History at Tel Aviv University and the University’s former President. Ambassador Rabinovich has been a member of the faculty of Tel Aviv University since 1971 and served as Chair of the Department of Middle Eastern Studies, Director of the Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, Dean of the Humanities, and Rector. From 1992-1996, he was Israel’s Ambassador to the United States and chief negotiator with Syria. Ambassador Rabinovich’s most recent books are The Lingering Conflict: Israel, The Arabs and the Middle East (2011) and The View from Damascus (2009). He is a member of the American Philosophical Society, a foreign member of the American Academy of Arts and Science and a member of the Trilateral Commission. He earned a B.A. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, an M.A. from Tel Aviv University and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles.