Center for Israel Studies

14 April 2016 “Israel and Europe” Amb. Prof. Élie Barnavi (Tel Aviv University)

Prof. Élie Barnavi is Professor of European Early Modern History at Tel Aviv University (emeritus) and Scientific Advisor to the Museum of Europe in Brussels. From 2000 to 2002 he served as the Ambassador of Israel to France. Élie Barnavi wrote some twenty books on France and Europe in the turmoil of the Religious Wars and on the contemporary history of Israel and of the Jewish people.
He published numerous studies in professional journals in Europe, the US, and Canada, as well as political articles in the Israeli and European press.

21 January 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 December 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 October 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.