NIF Sukkot Luncheon with Professor Michael Walzer
New York, NY - Wednesday, October 11, 2006, 12:30 to 2:00 pm
The New Generations Benefit
San Francisco, CA - Thursday, November 16, 2006, 7:30 P.M. to Midnight
NIF/Shatil Social Justice Fellows
Civil Rights
- Adalah
- ADVA Center
- Arab Center for Alternative Planning
- Association for Civil Rights in Israel
- Association of Forty
- Bimkom - Planners for Planning Rights
- Follow Up Committee for Arab Education
- Galilee Society
- MADA - Arab Center for Applied Social Research
- Mahapach: Education, Housing, and Livelihood
- MINORITY RIGHTS
- Mossawa - Advocacy for Arab Citizens of Israel
- Rikaz - Arab Citizens of Israel Databank
Religious Rights
About
Muhammad Hasan Amara is a senior lecturer at the departments of Political Studies and English at Bar-Ilan University , Ramat-Gan , Israel . His academic interests are language education, language policy, sociolinguistics, language and politics, collective identities, and Arab-Jewish cleavage in Israel . His publications include Politics and Sociolinguistics Reflexes: Palestinian Border Villages (John Benjamins, 1999), Language Education Policy: The Arab Minority in Israel , co-authored by Abd Al-Rahman Mar'i (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002), and a recently edited book, Language and Identity in Israel (The Palestinian Forum for Israeli Studies (Madar), 2002).
Gabriella Blum is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Law at Harvard University Law School , teaching International Law and International Negotiation. She previously served as the Strategic Advisor to the National Security Council in Israel . Blum received a B.A. in Economics from Tel Aviv University in 1996, and earned her S.J.D from Harvard Law School in 2003. Her research interests include conflict management, counter-terrorism operations, laws of armed conflict, negotiation, and public international law. She has published several articles and her book, Islands of Agreement: Managing Enduring Armed Rivalries , is forthcoming from Harvard University Press.
Former Member of Knesset Naomi Chazan is one of Israel 's outstanding leaders in the struggle for women's rights, civil rights, religious freedom, pluralism and peace. She is currently the Chair of Hemdat, the Council for Freedom of Religion in Israel , a broad, non-political coalition of liberal religious movements, women's groups, new immigrant organizations, and civil rights movements that promote freedom of science, religion and culture in Israel through mass action, advocacy, education and legal initiatives. Chazan received her B.A. and M.A. from Columbia University in New York , and her Ph.D. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is best known for her ten years in the Knesset as one of the Meretz Party's most effective legislators. She was first elected to the Knesset in 1992. Chazan served as Deputy Speaker of the Knesset and Chairperson of the Committee on Women's Rights , and as a member of the committees on Foreign Affairs and Defense, Economics, Immigration and Absorption among others. She is the sponsor of legislation on civil marriage and freedom to choose Reform or Conservative marriage.
Rabbi Ayelet S. Cohen is the Associate Rabbi of Congregation Beth Simchat Torah (CBST), the world's largest synagogue serving the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, family and friends. She became a full time rabbi at CBST in August, 2002, three months after she was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Rabbi Cohen worked as a translator for Dr. Yossi Beilin when he served as Israel 's Minister of Justice and in his office in the Knesset. Passionately committed to progressive and feminist Judaism, she is an activist and an advocate for full inclusion and celebration of LGBT Jews in the Conservative movement and the larger Jewish world. She is also an advocate for LGBT civil rights, including the right to marriage for same-sex couples in New York State and nationally. Rabbi Cohen has been profiled in the New York Times and was named one of the “Heeb Hundred,” Heeb Magazine's “hundred people you need to know about.” She was honored at the 2005 Ma'yan Seder as a leading young Jewish feminist activist.
Dalia Dorner served as a permanent justice on the Supreme Court of Israel from 1994 until her retirement in March 2004. She received her law degree from Hebrew University in 1956, and went on to work as a defense attorney for the Israeli Military Courts. She served as director of the Office of Defender until 1973, when she was appointed president of the Military District Court, and subsequently judge in the Military Court of Appeals. Among her most notable opinions on the Supreme Court, Dorner recognized the right of women to serve as pilots in the Israel Defense Forces. She also recognized greater harm in denying a woman her chance at motherhood than the harm to her husband of becoming a father against his wishes. Prior to her appointment to the Supreme Court, Dorner was a judge in the District Court of Be'er Sheva, and then in the District Court of Jerusalem, where she presided over the Dead Sea Scrolls case.
Peter Edelman is the president of the board of the New Israel Fund. Edelman is a professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center , where he has been on the faculty since 1982. He currently directs a clinic focusing on poverty policy in the District of Columbia . During President Clinton's first term of office, Edelman served as counselor to HHS Secretary Donna Shalala and then as Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation. Edelman has been Associate Dean of the Law Center , Director of the New York State Division for Youth and Vice President of the University of Massachusetts . He was a legislative assistant to Senator Robert F. Kennedy and was Issues Director for Senator Edward Kennedy's presidential campaign in 1980. Earlier, he was a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Arthur J. Goldberg, and before that to Judge Henry J. Friendly on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Edelman's book, Searching for America's Heart; RFK and the Renewal of Hope , was published by Houghton-Mifflin in January 2001. He is the author of many articles on poverty, constitutional law and children and youth issues. A native of Minnesota , Edelman attended Harvard College and Harvard Law School .
Nabila Espanioly was born in Nazareth in 1955. For more than three decades, she has been an energetic campaigner for the civil rights of the Palestinian minority in Israel ; for peace between Israel and Palestine on the basis of the two-state solution; and for equal rights for women. Espanioly received a B.A. in Social Work from Haifa University , and an M.A. in Psychology from Bamberg University in Germany . In 1989, she founded the Pedagogical Center and Multipurpose Women's Center in Nazareth , Al-Tufula, and has served as its director since then. She is also a founding member and current chairperson of the Mossawa Center , a joint Palestinian-Israeli organization based in Haifa . In 2003, Espanioly received the international Aachen Peace Prize in recognition of her efforts to promote peace and human rights in the Middle East . Espanioly has written and edited several books and articles on early childhood care and development, as well as general social and political issues related to women. She lectures on topics including early childhood education, Palestinian women in Israel , violence against women, sex education, women in the media, and women's political participation.
Since July 2004, Larry Garber has served as Executive Director of the New Israel Fund. Garber is a former senior official with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and served as Director of USAID's West Bank and Gaza missions from 1999-2004. Prior to his assignment as Mission Director, he held a number of supervisory positions in USAID's Bureau of Policy and Program Coordination Office, where he developed policies associated with USAID's democracy, human rights, and post-conflict programs. Before joining USAID, Garber was a senior associate with the National Democratic Institute, legal director with the International Human Rights Law Group, and an associate with the Steptoe and Johnson law firm. He has served as a consultant on election-related matters for the Organization of American States, United Nations, and Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe . He has also taught at the Washington College of Law at American University as an adjunct professor. Garber is the co-editor of The New Democratic Frontier: a Country by Country Assessment of the 1990 Elections in East and Central Europe , published in 1992 by NDI, and the author of Guidelines for International Election Observation, published in 1984 by the IHRLG. He is also the author of many articles on election monitoring, human rights, and democracy promotion. Garber was born and raised in New York City . He graduated from Queens College with a bachelor's degree and received both a master's degree in international affairs and a law degree from Columbia University.
Rabbi Miri Gold has served as the congregational rabbi for Kehilat Birkat Shalom at Kibbutz Gezer, affiliated with the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism (Reform), since 1999. She made aliyah in 1977 from Detroit to Kibbutz Gezer, was ordained at Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem , and received her M.A. from the Institute for Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University . As a non-Orthodox rabbi, Rabbi Gold is not recognized by the state, and thus receives her salary directly from the congregation. In September, she petitioned Israel 's Supreme Court to be recognized as a state-paid official ministering to the spiritual needs of the community. Rabbi Gold submitted her petition with veteran NIF grantee Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC) and the Gezer Regional Council, which is located midway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Her case has been reported extensively in Ha'aretz, the Forward, and the Jerusalem Post.
J.J. Goldberg is editor in chief of the Forward , the national newsweekly published in association with the legendary Jewish Daily Forward . An award-winning journalist, author and lecturer, he has covered the politics and culture of the Middle East and the Jewish world for more than two decades. In the past he has served as a syndicated columnist in New York , as a police reporter in Los Angeles and as U.S. bureau chief of the Israeli newsmagazine Jerusalem Report . His commentaries have appeared frequently in the New York Times and other newspapers. He is the author of several books, including the acclaimed 1996 study of American Jewish political clout, Jewish Power: Inside the American Jewish Establishment (Addison-Wesley Publishing), which was featured on the Philadelphia Inquirer's list of “100 most important books of 1996.” The New York Times said the book “can teach even the initiated a thing or two about American Jewish life in the postwar era.” A native New Yorker, he lived and worked in Israel during the 1970s, serving as an education specialist with the World Zionist Organization in Jerusalem and as an official of the kibbutz movement.
Shlomo Gur is the former Director-General of the Ministry of Justice in Israel . In 2002, he retired from government service after twenty-six years, most of them spent in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Among other posts, he served as Deputy Chief of Mission at the Israeli Embassy in Washington and as head of the diplomatic school. Gur was also intimately involved in the Oslo peace process. Gur currently teaches international negotiations at the Hebrew University , and serves as the Director of the European Union-Israel Forum. The Forum acts to promote relations between the EU and Israel , to further the dialogue between the two societies and to improve each society's image of the other.
Shlomo Hasson is a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he teaches at the Geography Department, the Center for Conflicts Settlement and the Institute of Urban and Regional Studies. He is the deputy director of the Floersheimer Institute for Policy Studies, a senior researcher at the Jerusalem Institute for Policy Studies, and has served on the New Israel Fund Board of Directors. His most recent studies include: Geopolitical Solutions to the Jerusalem Problem (2000), Divided Regions: A Comparative Perspective (with Moshe Hirsh and Alexander Wiengrod) (2000), The Struggle for Hegemony in Jerusalem: Secular and Ultra-Orthodox Jews in Urban Politics (2001), State, Religion and Society in Israel: Possible Futures (2002), How to Make an Impact: Researchers and Policy Makers (With Abraham Friedman) (2003), Sustainable Jerusalem (with Maya Choshen and Israel Kimchi) (2003), Jerusalem Between Separation and Integration (2003), and Social Sustainability in Israel (2003).
A leading Palestinian human rights lawyer and native of the second largest Arab town in Israel , Hassan Jabareen seeks to achieve equal individual and collective rights for Palestinian citizens of the state. He is the founder and Director of Adalah: The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, which works to achieve equal rights and minority rights protections for Arab citizens of Israel in the fields of land and housing, education, employment, language, political participation, women's rights, prisoner rights, culture, and religious rights. Jabareen regularly argues before the Israeli Supreme Court on behalf of his clients.
Jabareen received an L.L.M. in International Law and Human Rights from American University , Washington College of Law in 1996 and an L.L.B. in Law and a B.A. in Philosophy from Tel Aviv University in 1991. He worked as a staff attorney with the Association for Civil Rights in Israel for four years, and received the American University Peter Cicchino Award for Outstanding Advocacy in the Public Interest in 2000. A highly esteemed spokesperson and commentator, Jabareen is a source for various local and international media outlets. He also teaches in the law faculties of Hebrew and Tel Aviv universities, and publishes articles on citizenship, identity, and constitutionalism in academic law reviews. He participated in the Yale University World Fellows Program for 2005.
Judith Karp served for many years as Israel 's Deputy Attorney-General, authoring the Karp Report on Police Investigation of Complaints of Palestinians against Israelis in the Territories. She engaged in legislation, consultation and the shaping of social policy under her jurisdiction. She was also an expert member on the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. Karp's fields of expertise are human rights, the rights of the child, the status of women, constitutional law, criminal law, criminal procedure and rules of evidence, investigation authorities and law enforcement, police and prisons, juvenile delinquency, offense victims, the disabled, familial violence, sex offenses, sexual exploitation, commercial exploitation, drugs. She is currently the Academic Director of the Ethics in Law and Justice program at the Jerusalem Center for Ethics. She sits on the board of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel , and is a member of the New Israel Fund's International Council.
Meir Nitzan was appointed as the Head of the Jewish Agency for Israel , North American Delegation in May 2003. Nitzan began his service in the Jewish Agency in 1999 as the Director General of the Israel Department. As Director General he focused on Federation activities within the framework of Partnership 2000 and on issues related to developing the periphery of Israel , creating and promoting capital projects and establishing youth villages. Before coming to the Jewish Agency, Nitzan acted as Director General of the Jerusalem Development Authority and was involved in major urban projects. Prior to that position, he was Director General of the Israel Youth Hostel Association for twelve years. Nitzan holds an M.A. in Political Science from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and has been a fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science. During his years in the IDF regular and reserve services, he was promoted to the rank of Lt. Colonel.
Professor Herman Schwartz has worked for human rights both in the United States and abroad for over four decades. He is currently advising numerous former Soviet bloc countries on constitutional and human rights reform; he has recently analyzed proposed revisions of the Armenian and Georgian constitutions. In February and March of 1994 and 1995, he was a member of the U.S. Delegation to the 50th and 51st Sessions of the UN Human Rights Commission, and in June, 1993, he was one of four public members of the U.S. Delegation to the UN World Human Rights Conference in Vienna . In 1983, Professor Schwartz founded and now administers the US/Israel Civil Liberties Law program, which is designed to train and develop a human rights bar in Israel ; in recent years the program has been expanded to include lawyers from Central and East Europe and has been replicated at Columbia University Law School with his assistance. In 1987, he organized and chaired a Human Rights Watch Committee project on prisons throughout the world and has personally visited and reported on prison conditions in East Europe and Latin America . He is a Co-Director of the Washington College of Law Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, and a member of the boards of the Foundation for a Civil Society, Helsinki Watch, and other domestic and foreign public interest organizations. He is the author of many books and articles on American and European constitutional and human rights issues and has spoken at and participated in numerous international conferences on constitutional reform.
Rabbi Avi Shafran serves as director of public affairs for Agudath Israel of America , a national Orthodox Jewish organization. He was ordained at Ner Israel Rabbinical College in Baltimore , and spent nearly two decades in Jewish education, in California and Rhode Island . He is the author of three books: two collections of essays and a biography of a part-black, part-Native American convert to Judaism, Migrant Soul . Rabbi Shafran also pens a weekly column from an Orthodox Jewish perspective for Jewish and general interest newspapers.
Born in 1971, Rabbi Sol was raised in Connecticut . Following her graduation from Tufts University , where she received a B.A. in Developmental Psychology and Education, she received an M.A. in Jewish Education from the Rhea Hirsch School of Education of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles . During the course of her studies she spent a year at HUC-JIR in Jerusalem . She received her Masters of Hebrew Letters in 1996 and rabbinic ordination in 1999 from HUC-JIR in New York City . While engaged in studies at HUC-JIR in New York , Rabbi Sol began her involvement with Congregation B'nai Jeshurun as the Family and Youth Director, a position in which she served for three years. It was at this time that Rabbi Sol produced and edited Pnei Shabbat , B'nai Jeshurun's family's prayerbook. Following ordination, she became a Marshall T. Meyer Rabbinic Fellow at B'nai Jeshurun, serving in that position for two years and studying under the mentorship of Rabbis J. Rolando Matalon and Marcelo Bronstein. In 2001, Rabbi Sol joined her teachers, Rabbi Bronstein and Matalon in their rabbinic partnership. Rabbi Sol served on the Board of Kavod, is one of the founders of Lishmah. She also received the 2005 PaceSetter Award, nominated by Councilwoman Gale Brewer and presented by the New York City Council.
Mary Ann Stein is the President of the Moriah Fund, a private foundation seeking to promote human rights and democracy, help disadvantaged people gain self-sufficiency and control over their lives, foster sustainable development, promote women's rights and reproductive health and protect and preserve the environment. A graduate of Wellesley College and George Washington University Law Center , Ms. Stein has chaired several committees, coalitions, and mayoral advisory commissions on family and children's issues. She served on the D.C. Judicial Nominations Commission and has written and published papers on public assistance and child welfare. She is the Founding Chair of the Fund for Global Human Rights, and serves on the boards of Americans for Peace Now and the New Israel Fund.
Professor Yedidia Stern is a Senior Fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) where he heads the projects on Business & Democracy and Religion & State (along with Professor Aviezer Ravitzky). He also serves as Co-Chair of the Yachad Council for Reconciliation between Secular and Religious Jews, and is Co-Editor of the "Democratic Culture" Journal. Professor Stern was born in England in 1955 and grew up in Israel . He received his law degree from Bar-Ilan Law School and earned his Master's Degree and Doctorate in Corporate Law from Harvard Law School . Professor Stern has been a lecturer at Bar-Ilan Law School since 1988, and served as its Dean from 1994 to 1998. He was a visiting scholar at Harvard Law School in 1989. Prior to joining the Bar-Ilan faculty, he worked in law firms in Tel Aviv and New York . Since 1988, Professor Stern has been a legal consultant for leading corporations in Israel on issues of commercial law. He has also served as an advisor to the Ministry of Justice for the legislation of a new corporate law. Professor Stern has written and edited numerous books and articles, including State, Law, and Halakhah (Israel Democracy Institute, parts one, two, and three 2001, 2003, 2005), On the Role of Jewish Law in Matters of Religion and State (Israel Democracy Institute 2004), and Judaism: A Dialogue between Cultures (the Hebrew University 1999).
Neta Ziv is the director of The Cegla Clinical Law Programs at Tel Aviv University Law School . She is the academic supervisor of the Yaffo Community Law Program and teaches courses on Legal Ethics and the Legal Profession, Law and Social Change and Rights of People with Disabilities. Dr. Ziv received her LL.B. from the Hebrew University Law Faculty in 1983, and her LL.M. from The American University in Washington , DC in 1986. She practiced as a public interest lawyer for the Association for Civil Rights in Israel from 1986 to 1996, and served as a leading attorney in some of Israel 's major human rights cases litigated before the Israeli Supreme Court. She continued her studies at Stanford Law School and received her J.S.D. in 2001. Dr. Ziv was among the founding members of the Israel Women's Network Legal Center and was the chair of Bizchut – The Israel Human Rights Center for People with Disabilities.