Center for Israel Studies

23. Jänner 2018 “Nanomaterials at Interfaces” Prof. Yuval Golan (University of Tel Aviv)

Prof. Yuval Golan obtained his PhD in Materials and Interfaces from the Weizmann Institute in 1996 and spent three years as a postgraduate researcher at the Materials Research Laboratory, University of California, Santa Barbara. In 1999 he joined the Department of Materials Engineering at Ben-Gurion University and in 2010 he was promoted to full professor and appointed as Director of the Ilse Katz Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology at BGU. His research interests include surfactant-assisted synthesis of nanomaterials and chemical epitaxy of semiconductor thin films. Prof. Golan is an active researcher in the area of nanomaterials and thin films, has published over 120 papers in peer-reviewed international journals and supervised some 40 junior researchers (postdocs, MSc and PhD students). Since 2016 Prof. Golan is also Chairman of Graduate Studies in the Department of Materials Engineering and Chairman of the Synchrotron Committee of the Israeli Academy of Science.

See also: Faculty of Physics, University of Vienna

27. November 2017 „Turning Points in Israeli History: From the Balfour Declaration to the Camp David Accords“. Prof. Itamar Rabinovich (chair), Prof. Shlomo Ben-Ami, Prof. Ilan Troen

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.

Prof. Shlomo Ben-Ami graduated from Tel Aviv University and St Antony’s College, Oxford. From the 1970s onwards he was a historian at Tel Aviv University, serving as head of the School of History from 1982 to 1986. 1999 he was appointed Minister of Internal Security and in addition in 2000 Foreign Minister. In 2002 he resigned from the Knesset. In 2006- 2010 Prof. Ben Ami served in the board of the International Crisis Group. He is now a member of the Crisis Group Senior Advisers. In 2009-2010 he was a member board of the Commission for Nuclear Non proliferation co-sponsored by the governments of Australia and Japan. Ben-Ami is currently Vice-President of the Toledo International Centre for Peace. His latest book is “Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli–Arab Tragedy” (published in Oxford, 2006)

Prof. Ilan Troen was born in Boston, educated at Brandeis, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the University of Chicago. Before moving to Israel​ in 1975 when he joined Ben-Gurion University, he was on the faculty of Missouri and Princeton. At the Ben-Gurion University he was the Lopin Professor of Modern History; Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences; Director of the Ben-Gurion Research Institute and Archives in Sede Boker; and Director of the Kreitman Foundation Fellowships. At Ben-Gurion University he contributed to pioneering programs in Israel Studies and was the founding Editor of Israel Studies. He established the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies.  He has authored or edited numerous books in American, Jewish and Israeli history.
He is co-author of the following publications: “Jews and Muslims in the Arab World; Haunted by Pasts Real and Imagined” Rowman and Littlefield, 2007; “Imagining Zion: Dreams, Designs, and Realities in a Century of Jewish Settlement” Yale University Press, 2003; “Divergent Jewish Cultures: America and Israel” Yale University Press, 2001.

12. November 2017 “In Conversation with Meir Shalev” moderator: Ute Woltron (Der Standard)

Meir Shalev, geboren 1948 in Nahalal in der Jesreel-Ebene, studierte Psychologie und arbeitete viele Jahre als Journalist, Radio- und Fernsehmoderator. Er ist einer der bekanntesten und beliebtesten israelischen Romanciers und erhielt 2006 den Brenner Prize, die höchste literarische Auszeichnung in Israel. Zuletzt erschien sein Roman ›Zwei Bärinnen‹. Meir Shalev schreibt regelmäßig Kolumnen für die Tageszeitung ›Yedioth Ahronoth‹. Er lebt in Nord-Israel.

30. Oktober 2017 “The Israeli Project: Architecture in Israel 1948-1974” Prof. Zvi Efrat (former Head of Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem; partner at  Efrat-Kowalsky Architects (EKA) )
    

Prof. Dr. Zvi Efrat, Architect and Architectural Historian, is a partner at Efrat-Kowalsky Architects (EKA) and was Head of the Department of Architecture at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem (2002-2010). He studied at Pratt Institute (professional degree), NYU (Cinema Studies) and Princeton University (PhD in the History and Theory of Architecture). He has taught at several universities, lectured worldwide, published extensively and curated numerous exhibitions, among them: Borderline Disorder (The Israeli Pavilion at the 8 the Architectural Biennale, Venice, 2002) and The Object of Zionism, Swiss Architecture Museum, Basel, 2011). His book, The Israeli Project: Building and Architecture 1948-1973, was published in Hebrew in 2004. Zvi’s book „The Israel Project: The Architecture of Zionism“, is due September 2017. The Office of Efrat-Kowalsky Architects (EKA) specializes in the design of museums and in the re-programming and re-use of existing structures. Among the office recent projects: design of performing arts campus in Jerusalem; renewal and expansion of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem; preservation and new additions to the City Museum of Tel Aviv.

26. Juni 2017 “Heiliges oder Unheiliges Land? Religion und Staat in Israel” Prof. Michael Brenner ( Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and Center for Israel Studies at the American University in Washington, D.C. 

Prof. Michael Brenner ist Professor für Jüdische Geschichte und Kultur an der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München und Direktor des Center for Israel Studies an der American University in Washington, D.C. Er ist Internationaler Präsident des Leo Baeck Instituts und gewähltes Mitglied der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften sowie der Accademia Nazionale Virgiliana in Mantua. 2014 wurde ihm das Bundesverdienstkreuz am Bande verliehen. Zu seinen Buchveröffentlichungen, die in über zehn Sprachen übersetzt wurden, zählen:
Israel: Traum und Wirklichkeit des jüdischen Staates,
Kleine Jüdische Geschichte, Propheten des Vergangenen: Jüdische Geschichtsschreibung im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert sowie
Jüdische Kultur in der Weimarer Republik.
U.a gab er die Geschichte der Juden in Deutschland von 1945 bis in die Gegenwart heraus.

8. Mai 2017 “Iran, Israel and the USA in a Changing Middle East” Prof. David Menashri (Tel Aviv University)

Prof. David Menashri is Professor Emeritus at Tel Aviv University and Senior Research Fellow at the Alliance Center for Iranian Studies and the Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University (TAU). Menashri founded and was the first Director the Alliance Center for Iranian Studies and is internationally recognized Iran scholar. He has been a visiting Fulbright scholar at Princeton and Cornell University, and, among others, a visiting professor at the University of Chicago, Yale, UCLA, Oxford, Melbourne and Monash Universities (Australia), the Universities of Munich and Mainz (Germany) and Waseda (Tokyo). In the late 1970s, Menashri spent two years conducting research and field studies in Iranian universities on the eve of the Islamic Revolution with a grant from Ford Foundation. Prof. Menashri’s publications includes: Post-Revolutionary Politics in Iran: Religion, Society and Power; Revolution at A Crossroads: Iran’s Domestic Challenges and Regional Ambitions; Iran: Between Islam and the West (Hebrew); Education and the Making of Modern Iran; Iran: A Decade of War and Revolution; Iran in Revolution (Hebrew).
He is also the editor of „Iran: Anatomy of Revolution“ (together with Liora Hendelman-Baavur, 2009, Hebrew); Religion and State in the Middle East (Hebrew); Central Asia Meets the Middle East; and The Iranian Revolution and the Muslim World.

27. April 2017 “Israeli Women between Sexual Harassment and Religious (Jewish and Muslim) Family Law” Prof. Orit Kamir (Center for Human Dignity)

Prof. Orit Kamir publishes, teaches and is socially active in three interdisciplinary areas: 1.Dignity, respect and honor as moral/ethical values, bedrocks of social structures, and foundations of legislation and policy making; 2. Law-and-Film: analysis of mutual influences of two powerful contemporary discourses, that have substantial impact on the creation and determination of individuals’

30. März 2017 “Threats to Democracy in Israel” Prof. Itzhak Galnoor  (Hebrew University Jerusalem and The Van Leer Institute, Jerusalem)
   

Prof. Itzhak Galnoor is the Herbert Samuel Professor of Political Science (emeritus) at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has been a Visiting Professor at many international universities, and served on the Executive Committee of the International Political Science Association (IPSA) and edited its Advances in Political Science book series, published by Cambridge University Press.
Galnoor was Head of the Civil Service Commission in the Government headed by Itzhak Rabin; A member of the Israel Science Foundation’s Executive Committee and in charge of its Humanities and Social Sciences division (2001-2007); on the Governing Board of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2003-2007); Deputy Chair of the Council for Higher Education 2007-2008. He is the head of the Israeli Political Science Association (2012-). Since 2007 he is a Senior Fellow at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute and Academic Director of the State Responsibility and the Limits of Privatization project at the Chazan Center for Social Justice. His book (with Dr. Dana Blander) The Israeli Political System (2013) is forthcoming in English in 2016 at Cambridge University Press.
In June 2015 Galnoor was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Association of Israel Studies (AIS).

30. Jänner 2017 “The Rise of the Israeli Right” Prof. Colin Shindler (SOAS, University Of London)

Prof. Colin Shindler is an Emeritus Professor at the School of Oriental Studies, University of London. He was the first Professor of Israel Studies in the UK and founding chair of the European Association of Israel Studies.
He is the author of numerous books about Israel including The Rise of the Israeli Right (2015). His recent publications include the second edition of his History of Modern Israel (Cambridge 2013) and Israel and the European Left (Bloomsbury 2012). His areas of expertise include both the Israeli Right as well as the European Left.
His next book The Hebrew Republic: Episodes from the History of Israel and the Jewish Diaspora will be published by Rowman and Littlefield later in 2017.
He often contributes to the international media including the New York Times, the Times Literary Supplement, Jerusalem Post and Ha’aretz.

5. Dezember 2016 “God is Back: Religion and Cinema in Israel” Dr. Yaron Peleg (University of Cambridge)

Dr. Yaron Peleg is Kennedy-Leigh Lecturer in Modern Hebrew Studies at the University of Cambridge. His publications include Directed by God, Jewishness in Contemporary Israeli Film and Television (2016), Israeli Culture Between the Two Intifadas (2008) and Orientalism and the Hebrew Imagination (2005). He is also co-editor of an anthology of articles on contemporary Israeli cinema, Identities in Motion (2011). Dr. Peleg has also published articles on topics, including literary critiques, which examine the concept of Land in modern Hebrew prose, attitudes toward militarism, homoeroticism in biblical as well as more modern Hebrew literature and various articles about Israeli cinema that focus on gender, masculinity, ethnicity and religiosity.