December 22, 2009
The Israel on Campus Coalition (ICC) is again pleased to offer an outstanding resource to enhance Israel education on campuses: the Traveling Israel Scholars Program. As part of its Israel in Academia initiative, the ICC and its 33 national member organizations have committed to expanding opportunities for students to study about Israel on campus. Through the Traveling Israel Scholars Program, the ICC will work with students and campus professionals to enable high-caliber visiting Israeli scholars – on leave from their Israeli universities for a semester or a full year, through the American-Israel Cooperative Enterprise’s (AICE) Schusterman Visiting Israeli Professor Program – to travel from their temporary U.S. universities to other American universities for several days at a time to teach in classrooms, provide guest lectures and address the campus community.
These scholars are available to visit campuses at the highly subsidized cost of only $250, with the ICC covering all other expenses including travel. A list of scholars available in your region will be posted shortly.
For more information, please contact Andrea Sorin.
Traveling Scholars on the East Coast
Isaac Kfir
Syracuse University
Schusterman Visiting Israeli Professor
Political Science/Law
Professor Kfir is a lecturer at the Raphael Recanati International School, the Lauder School of Government Interdisciplinary Centre (IDC) Herzliya and a Senior Researcher at the Institute for Counter-Terrorism, Herzliya, Israel. In 1999 he was working as a Research Fellow in International Relations at the University of Buckingham before moving to the legal profession. Beginning in 2002, he worked for several years in civil litigation and insolvency before returning to academia. His current academic research interests ranged from United Nations peacekeeping, peace-building and peacemaking. Isaac has published several research papers in the field of counter-terrorism and Islamic radicalism in the Horn of Africa and the United Kingdom, as well as in the field “democracy promotion” in South Asia. He is currently working on a book on democracy in Pakistan. He received his Ph.D. from the London School of Economics.
Shlomo Mizrahi
Rutgers (Newark)
Schusterman Visiting Israeli Professor
Public Policy
Professor Mizrahi is a Senior Lecturer at Ben-Gurion University School of Management’s Department of Public Policy and Administration and served as Chair of the department from 2002 until 2008. His research spans a range of public policy issues including new public management, political economy, the intersection between public and private sectors, decision- making in public policy, the welfare state and public policy and modern political economies. He has authored and co-authored a multitude of articles in these subject areas. His forthcoming co-authored book is called Israel Since 1980.
Larissa Remennick
Hebrew Union College/Jewish Theological Seminary
Schusterman Visiting Israeli Professor
Sociology, Anthropology
Professor Remennick is the Chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Bar Ilan University. She received her Ph.D. from the Institute of Sociology at the USSR‟s Academy of Sciences and completed her post-doctoral fellowship at Oxford University’s Department of Social Medicine and Community Health. Professor Remennick’s research combines the disciplines of public health, social medicine, sociology and anthropology in an interdisciplinary manner. Her areas of expertise include international migration, immigrant integration and health, ethnic diasporas and transnationalism; gender aspects of health and wellness, sociology and politics of fertility and family planning, Russian and Soviet Jewish community, immigration and global Diaspora and cancer control through the lens of social science. She serves as the editor of the peer-reviewed journal, Sociological Papers, is an advisor to the World Health Organization and the International Planned Parenthood Federation of Europe. Her publications include Russian Jews on Three Continents: Identity, Integration, and Conflict (2007) and The Cancer Problem in the Context of Modernity: Sociology, Demography, Politics (1998). She has authored multiple journal articles in English and Russian.
Traveling Scholars in the Midwest
Alexander Bligh
Notre Dame University
Schusterman Visiting Israeli Professor
Political Science, History of Islam, Arab Studies
Professor Bligh is a former Advisor to the Israeli Prime Minister on Arab Affairs (1990-1992). He also served as Deputy in that office for the three years prior. He is currently the Chair of the Department of Political Science and Middle Eastern Studies at the College of Judea and Samaria and the Director of that school’s Center for International Strategic Assessment. He is a Senior Lecturer in Political Science at Bar-Ilan University and the Director of the Masters Program on Democracy and Democratization in the Arab World. His lecture topics include: ethnic conflicts in comparative perspective; history of Islam since the 7th century; international relations; minorities in the Middle East; political and social history of the Middle East since the 18th century; sources of radical Islam, development, and current political implications; refugees and human rights in the post-World War II world; regimes, societies, and political systems in the Middle East; religious fundamentalism and its political implications; the political development, security, and foreign policies of Israel, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Jordan; and the political, religious, and economic dimensions of terror.
Miri Talmon-Bohm
University of Wisconsin
Schusterman Visiting Israeli Professor
Israeli Film and Culture
Dr. Talmon-Bohm has been teaching about Israeli culture and identity through film and television for more than 20 years. She specializes in cultural studies with a focus on Israeli culture, including cinema, literature, folk/popular culture, and media in Israel. Her academic background in applied linguistics includes foreign language teaching expertise (specifically, Hebrew for speakers of English and English for speakers of Hebrew). Themes of courses previously and currently taught include the politics of identity in Israeli culture; the negotiation of collective and national Israeli identity in cinema and television; popular/folk Israeli culture: Jewish origins, Israeli variations; the impact of the Israeli context on Israeli society and culture as an immigrant society; being in a state of conflict, terror and war: changing trends in culture (cultural history); the impact of the Holocaust on Israeli consciousness; the conflict and terror in Israeli life; the Israeli media and its products (especially popular Israeli culture) as cultural reflections – in both American and Israeli contexts; impact of postmodernism and globalization on Israeli culture, especially as articulated in cinema and television.
Matt Silver
The Ohio State University
Schusterman Visiting Israeli Professor
Modern Jewish and Israeli History
Professor Silver is the Head of the General Studies Department for the Emek Jezreel College in Israel. His focus is on American Jewish history, trends in modern Jewish thought and Israeli history. Among others, he has taught courses on the media and the Middle East, the Holocaust and its impact on modern Jewish thought and comparative religious history between Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Professor Silver has also researched the activity of American Zionism during the early 20th century and his forthcoming book focuses on the work of American Zionist organizations in Mandatory Palestine. He has served on the editorial board of Ha’aretz in Israel and was a visiting professor at Central Connecticut State University, during which time he gave several courses in the Department of Communications, as well as in the Judaic Studies and History Departments.
Joseph Turner
Indiana University
Schusterman Visiting Israeli Professor
Modern Jewish Philosophy
Professor Turner is a Senior Lecturer in Modern Jewish Philosophy at the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem. His research focuses on Jewish thought throughout the ages with a special emphasis on the modern period, Zionist and Diasporist thought, The State of Israel in the period of globalization, faith after the Holocaust and the philosophy of Halakhah. He received rabbinic ordination from the Seminary of Judaic Studies in Jerusalem and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Jewish Thought and Philosophy from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His books include: Faith and Humanism: A Study of Franz Rosenzweig’s Religious Philosophy and Interactions Between Judaism and Christianity in History, Religion, Art, and Literature (co-editor). Forthcoming publications are: Zionism and Diasporism: A Philosophical Inquiry into the Problems of Contemporary Jewish Existence and Faith Truth and Reason: Collected Essays Following the International Franz Rosenzweig Conference in Jerusalem 2006 (co-editor).
Traveling Scholars in the South
Igal Bursztyn
University of Tennessee
Schusterman Visiting Israeli Professor
Film and Cinema
Professor Bursztyn is an Israeli film maker who also holds the position of Full Professor Adjunct in Tel Aviv University’s Faculty of Arts. Having directed dozens of full-length motion pictures, short films and documentaries, Professor Bursztyn is known as one of Israel’s foremost filmmakers. He has presented and lectured about his films at various film festivals around the world including Paris, Germany, New York, Taiwan, Spain, Holland, Hungary, Portugal, Russia, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. His books on film include Film, Language and Civil Wars of Culture (1996), Documentation Documentary, Fiction (2005) and Intimate Gazes (2009). His films include several documentaries including Displaced Persons (1979), Leibovitz in Maalot (1979), Belated Talk (1987), Smokescreen (1999) and Guide for the Perplexed (2005). His short dramas include Louise! Louise! (1968), Ethics V (1992) and Letters to Felice (1993). His feature films are Belfer (1976), The Glow (Zimzum) (2000), Out of the Blue (Etzbah Elohim) (2008) and he is currently working on Return of Casanova.
Ilan Fuchs
Tulane University
Schusterman Visiting Israeli Professor
Law
Professor Fuchs is an expert in secular and religious law at Bar Ilan University. He has taught about Israeli constitutional law, legal theory, legal writing, Jewish law, Jewish family law and the history of Chasidism. His research focuses on women in Jewish law, as well as general Israeli legal issues. He has clerked at the Israeli Supreme Court for its Registrar, Judge Oded Shaham and Justice Elyakim Rubenstein. Professor Fuchs received his rabbinic ordination from Bar Ilan University’s Institute for Higher Torah Learning.
Alexander Mishory
Rice University
Schusterman Visiting Israeli Professor
Art History
Professor Mishory is a Lecturer of Art History at The Open University in Tel Aviv. He is a well-known author and art critic in Israel and has taught at the prestigious Bezalel Art Academy in Jerusalem and the State Art Teacher’s College. He has served as a judge for the “Israel-America Cultural Foundation” Visual Arts Scholarship and has been a member of the Visual Arts Committee of the Israeli Ministry of Education and Culture’s Organization of Cultural Arts. He has published his articles widely in academic journals, as well as his art critiques in newspapers and on Israel Radio. His books include Still Life: from Depicted Objects to Real Objects (2008), Joseph Budko and H.N. Bialik’s Complete Works Edition of 1923, Modern Hebrew Poetry and Art in Harmony (2006) and Lo and Behold: Visual Aspects of Zionist Myths in Israeli Culture (Hebrew, 2000). Professor Mishory has participated in academic conferences in Israel, as well as throughout Europe and the United States.
Traveling Scholars on the West Coast
Raphael Israeli
California State University, Chico
Richard and Rhonda Goldman Visiting Israeli Professor
Asian/Middle East History and Culture
Dr. Israeli is a lecturer and professor of Chinese and Middle Eastern history, and Islamic civilization at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He received his undergraduate degree in Arabic and History from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, a Masters in East Asian History from University of California, Berkeley, and a Ph.D. also from UC Berkeley in Chinese and Islamic History. Israeli is the author of 25 books and over 100 scholarly articles such as The Islamic Challenge in Europe and Muslim Minorities in the Modern State. A frequent lecturer, he often speaks about topics such as the Jewish community of China, Jews and Israel in Arab eyes, Jews in the Arab world, sectarianism in Chinese Islam, and understanding Islam. He is teaching classes on the Arab-Israeli Conflict and the Israeli Political System at CSU, Chico this spring.
Azi Lev-On
Stanford University
Goldman Visiting Israeli Professor
Political Communication, Political Theory
Dr. Azi Lev-On is the head of the new media track in Ariel University Center in Israel. He studies the social and political uses of the Internet, focusing on questions of collective action and democratic governance, and employing a variety of methods such as surveys and laboratory experiments. Recent research studies how and why computer-mediated communication impacts monetary transfers in trust games, how people rank news stories online, as well as Internet usage by candidates in the Israeli municipal elections 2008, and by Ultra-Orthodox women who participate in closed forums online.
Zach Levey
University of Colorado
Schusterman Visiting Israeli Professor
Political Science and International Relations
Professor Levey is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Political Science at Haifa University. His research and teaching focuses on the areas of international history, the Cold War, the foreign policies of Israel, the United States and Britain, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Great Powers and the Middle East, Middle Eastern history and international relations. His publications include: Israel and the Western Powers, 1952-1960 and Israel in Africa: 1956-1973 (forthcoming). He is co-editor of Britain and the Middle East: From Imperial Power to Junior Partner. Professor Levey serves on the peer review committees of the following academic journals: Civil Wars, Diplomatic History, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Journal of Contemporary History, The Journal of Israeli History and The Journal of Strategic Studies.
Daniel Marom
San Francisco State University
Richard and Rhonda Goldman Visiting Israeli Professor
Education
After making Aliyah in 1982 from Toronto, Canada, Dr. Daniel Marom devoted his professional career to the study and practice of teaching Israel and Zionism. A historian and educator, he graduated from York University in Toronto, and got his M.A. and Ph.D. at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Currently, Marom holds the role of director of the Visions Unit at the Mandel Leadership Institute in Jerusalem, which is devoted to developing visions of Jewish and Israeli education as resources for the training of educational leaders for the 21st century. His published works include “After Exodus: Jewish Encounters in the Unpromised Land” (Hebrew) and “Visions of Jewish Education” as well as articles and curricula on the alternative ideas of Israel and Zionism. Dr. Marom is teaching classes on Israel Studies and Israeli Democracy and Society at SFSU this spring.
Martin Sherman
Hebrew Union College/University of Southern California
Schusterman Visiting Israeli Professor
Security Studies and International Policy
Professor Sherman is the academic director of the Jerusalem Summit and a research fellow in the Security Studies Program at Tel Aviv University. He is also a research fellow at the International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) and was an academic advisor to the internationally known Herzliya Conference. Professor Sherman served for several years in operational capacities in the Israeli intelligence community and has held the post of ministerial advisor to the Israeli government. His books include The Politics of Water in the Middle East, (1999) and Despots, Democrats and the Determinants of International Conflict, (1998). He has been published widely in journals and has edited books and policy papers on a range of strategic and foreign policy issues. His latest work focuses on Israel’s developing ties with India. Professor Sherman is a frequent television and radio commentator on foreign and security policy topics in Hebrew and English.
Gayil Talshir
University of Arizona
Schusterman Visiting Israeli Professor
Political Science, Public Policy
Upon graduation from the University of Oxford and receiving her Ph.D. in 1998, Gayil Talshir received her position as a lecturer of political science at the Hebrew University, launching three intellectual paths: first, the study of ideology as a bridge between the two „separate tables‟ of the discipline – comparative politics and political philosophy; second, the study of civil society and its relation to party democracy, in theory, comparative analysis and Israeli studies; third, a critical analysis of the welfare state: theory, ideology and policy, looking on the UK and Israel especially in the area of education. She spent a sabbatical in 2003-4 at Oxford and the University of Michigan and received her senior lecturer and tenured position at the Hebrew University in 2006. Being a great believer in the public university and its societal role, she has initiated, with colleagues, the center for citizenship and democracy of the faculty where she headed for five years the MA program in politics and civic education. Over the last three year she is the head of the public policy MA program for senior public servants, the top training course for the Israeli public sector in the hope to strengthen the theory/praxis nexus between the academy and the top policy makers in Jerusalem.
The scholars' bios are also available for downloading here:
Traveling Scholars bios 2009-2010 (PDF file 45 Kb)
[Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader version 4.0 or higher.]