SHORT SYNOPSIS
Body and Soul: The State of the Jewish Nation presents a comprehensive examination of the broad and deep connections between the Jewish people and the land of Israel. World-renowned scholars and experts trace the evocative evolution of the relationship between the Jewish people and their homeland that is more than 3,000 years old.
SHORT SYNOPSIS
Body and Soul: The State of the Jewish Nation presents a comprehensive examination of the broad and deep connections between the Jewish people and the land of Israel. World-renowned scholars and experts trace the evocative evolution of the relationship between the Jewish people and their homeland that is more than 3,000 years old.
A concise, skillful recounting of the story of the Jewish people and their connection to the land of Israel… the film is as cogent as it is inspiring.
Delivers its passionate case with convincing cogency and a wealth of scholarly information… a vital cinematic addition to Jewish scholarship.
Body and Soul: The State of the Jewish Nation is a cinematic and educational triumph.
Greenfield’s film, of necessity, has a darker ending than we would want. But with advocates like the ones she has ingathered for us, it is hardly without hope. It is a must-see film.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
Over several decades, we have seen in a growing number of international forums seeking to isolate and remove the state of Israel from the wider family of nations. This is done through deliberate and systematic efforts to erode the moral standing of Israel by ceaseless and relentless stigmatization.
The origins of this campaign to delegitimize Israel can be traced to the Soviet Union. Following the Arab defeat in June 1967, the Soviet Union’s animosity towards Israel intensified. A propaganda campaign against Israel was launched in Soviet mass media with an avalanche of articles, lectures, broadcasts, and film vilifying Judaism, Zionism and Israel. As explained by Professor Robert Wistrich in his landmark study From Ambivalence to Betrayal, “In place of the relentless Nazi myths about ‘Jewish Bolshevism,’ the Soviet communists began to fabricate the equally mendacious thesis of ‘Jewish Nazism’.”
Islamist ideologues understand the durability and power of grossly impudent lies, and have incorporated the erasure of Jewish history and fabrication of pseudo-history into their arsenal. Their intent is nothing less than genocidal.
As Bret Stephens warns the viewer, “the efforts to act as if Israel is a uniquely incorrigible and illegitimate state that has no right to exist is at least as dangerous as Iran’s bid to acquire a nuclear weapon; because it establishes the conditions in which a bid like the Iranian bid can be seen as somehow acceptable.”
That is why Body and Soul: The State of the Jewish Nation had to be made: to set the record straight. The historical connection between the Jewish people and the land of Israel is undeniable. The propaganda, myths and misinformation that have been accepted by so many must be debunked.
SCREENINGS
Body and Soul: The State of the Jewish Nation is a powerful and effective educational resource. Sponsor a screening for your university, community, conference, organization, classroom, church or synagogue. For details on acquiring permission and scheduling a public screening, contact us here.
FILM FESTIVALS
• Remi Special Jury Award, Political/International Issues, Houston International Film Festival, 2015
• Official Selection, Palm Beach Jewish Film Festival, 2015
• Official Selection, Mobile Jewish Film Festival, 2015
• Official Selection, Vancouver Jewish Film Festival, 2014
• Official Selection, New Hampshire Jewish Film Festival, 2014
• Official Selection, Rockland International Jewish Film Festival, 2014
FEATURING (in order of appearance)
RUTH WISSE | JONATHAN SACKS | ROBERT WISTRICH | ISRAEL FINKELSTEIN | AREN MAEIR | ISAIAH GAFNI | ISRAEL BARTAL | JAMES SNYDER | SHALOM PAUL | VICTOR DAVIS HANSON | JEFFREY WOOLF | ELIE ABADIE | SHMUEL TRIGANO | YORAM HAZONY | EINAT WILF | ANITA SHAPIRA | YOSSI KLEIN HALEVI | DEEDEE COLEMAN | RICK RICHMAN | HILLEL HALKIN | BENNY MORRIS | JONATHAN SARNA | MARK KRAMER | EMANUELE OTTOLENGHI | JEFFREY HERF | ALAN BAKER | EUGENE KONTOROVICH | IRWIN COTLER | ALAN DERSHOWITZ | YISRAEL MEDAD | ITAMAR MARCUS | MANFRED GERSTENFELD | LUBA MAYEKISO | SHIMON SAMUELS | YOSEF KUPERWASSER | BRET STEPHENS
DETAILS
TRT: 65 MINUTES | COLOR | 2014
FILMMAKERS
Executive Producer
GEORGE VIOLIN
Producer and Director
GLORIA Z. GREENFIELD
Director of Photography
RICHARD CHISOLM
Editor
DAVID GROSSBACH
Original Music and Arrangement
SHARON FARBER
AVAILABILITY
DVD (NTSC, PAL)
Apple TV
Google Play
Prime Video
SalemNOW
Tubi
YouTube Movies
Vudu
FEATURED COMMENTATORS
Ruth Wisse, PhD
Professor, Harvard University
As a scholar and a literary and social critic, Ruth Wisse is a unique figure in American Jewish letters. She bridges the worlds of Yiddish and American culture, of literature and politics, and of Israel and the Diaspora. Wisse is currently research professor of Yiddish literature and comparative literature at Harvard University, She was the Martin Peretz Professor of Yiddish Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature at Harvard University from 1993 until her retirement in 2014. Before that she taught at McGill University where she helped to found the Jewish Studies Department. She was president of the Association for Jewish Studies, 1985-88. Wisse has written several books on literature, and is also the author of three political studies: If I Am Not for Myself: the Liberal Betrayal of the Jews (Free Press, 1992), Jews and Power (Schocken, 2007), and No Joke: Making Jewish Humor (Princeton, 2013). Her political writings have appeared in Commentary, Weekly Standard, The Wall Street Journal, among others.
Ruth Wisse
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks
Chief Rabbi, United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth (1991-2013)
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks is currently the Ingeborg and Ira Rennert Global Distinguished Professor of Judaic Thought at New York University and the Kressel and Ephrat Family University Professor of Jewish Thought at Yeshiva University. He has also been appointed as Professor of Law, Ethics and the Bible at King’s College London. Rabbi Sacks holds 16 honorary degrees, including a Doctor of Divinity conferred to mark his first ten years in office as Chief Rabbi, by the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey. In recognition of his work, Rabbi Sacks has won several international awards, including the Jerusalem Prize in 1995 for his contribution to diaspora Jewish life and The Ladislaus Laszt Ecumenical and Social Concern Award from Ben-Gurion University in Israel in 2011. Rabbi Sacks has also recently been named as The Becket Fund’s 2014 Canterbury Medallist for his role in the defense of religious liberty in the public square. He was knighted by Her Majesty The Queen in 2005 and made a Life Peer, taking his seat in the House of Lords in October 2009. A prolific writer, he is author of 25 books.
Jonathan Sacks
Robert S. Wistrich, PhD
Director, Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism
Robert Wistrich has held the Neuberger Chair of Modern European and Jewish History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem since 1989. He was previously the first holder of the Jewish Chronicle Chair for Jewish Studies at University College, London. Wistrich has edited several journals and is author and editor of 25 books, several of which won international prizes. Many commentators have hailed his recent magnum opus, A Lethal Obsession: Antisemitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad, as the definitive work on the subject for years to come. It was recently awarded the Best Book of the Year Prize by the editors of the Journal for the Study of Antisemitism who described Professor Wistrich as “the leading scholar in the field of antisemitism study.” Wistrich’s most recent book is From Ambivalence to Betrayal: The Left, the Jews and Israel (University of Nebraska Press, 2012).
Robert Wistrich
Israel Finkelstein, PhD
Jacob M. Alkow Professor of the Archaeology of Israel in the Bronze Age and Iron Ages, Tel Aviv University
Israel Finkelstein specializes in Middle Eastern archaeology of the ancient history of the Land of Israel. He is co-director of excavations at Megiddo in northern Israel and served as Director of the Sonia and Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University from 1996-2002. He has authored several books, including The Forgotten Kingdom (2013), which won the 2014 Prix Delalande Guérineau of the Institut de France, l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. Laureate of the Dan David Prize in the Past Dimension, Archaeology (2005), Finkelstein was also named Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture (2009); Doctorate honoris causa from the University of Lausanne (2010); and correspondant étranger of the French Académie des Inscriptions et Belles.
Israel Finkelstein
Aren Maeir, PhD
Professor of Archaeology, Bar Ilan University
Aren Maeir has participated in and directed numerous archaeological excavations in Israel, including Jerusalem, Hazor, Yoqneam, Tell Qasile, and Beth-Shean. Since 1996 he has directed the Tell es-Safi/Gath Archaeological Project, excavating the ancient site of Tell es-Safi, which is identified as Canaanite and Philistine Gath. His expertise lies in the Bronze and Iron Age cultures of the Eastern Mediterranean, with special emphasis on those of the Ancient Levant. Between 2005 and 2007 he served as the Chairman of the Martin (Szusz) Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology at Bar Ilan University. Along with Professor Steve Weiner of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, he initiated and co-directed the now defunct joint Bar Ilan University/ Weizmann Institute of Science program in Archaeological Science.
Aren Maeir
Isaiah Gafni, PhD
Sol Rosenbloom Chair of Jewish History, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Isaiah Gafni’s focus is research on political, social and religious Jewish life during the Second Temple Period (516 BCE – 70 CE). He is interested in the attitudes of the Jews of the Second Temple towards the Land of Israel. His research focuses on how Judaism was reshaped during the years following the Temple’s destruction. A prolific writer, his book The Jews of Talmudic Babylonia: A Social and Cultural History was honored with the 1992 Holon Municipality Prize for Jewish studies. Gafni has been a professor in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for over 40 years and has devoted much effort to the dissemination of Jewish historical knowledge on a popular level as well. He wrote the first course in Jewish Studies at Israel’s Open University (“From Jerusalem to Yavne”), and is Chairman of the publications committee of the Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History, an extension of the Historical Society of Israel devoted to the enhancement of Jewish historical consciousness in Israel and abroad.
Isaiah Gafni
Israel Bartal, PhD
Avraham Harman Professor of Jewish History, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Israel Bartal is the former Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He was also the director of the Center for Research on the History and Culture of Polish Jewry, and the academic chairman of the Project of Jewish Studies in Russian at the Hebrew University. He served as the co-director of the Center for Jewish Studies and Civilization at Moscow State University and the academic chair of the Leonid Nevzlin Research Center for Russian and East European Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Since 2006 he has served as chair of the Israel Historical Society. Bartal is one of the founders of Cathedra, the leading scholarly journal on the history of the Land of Israel, and had served as its co-editor for over twenty years. Bartal has published many books and numerous articles on the history and culture of East European Jewry, Jewish nationalism, and the Jews of Palestine in the pre-Zionist era.
Israel Bartal
James S. Snyder
Director, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem
James S. Snyder is a graduate of Harvard University and a Loeb Fellow of Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. From 1986-1996, Snyder served as deputy director of The Museum of Modern Art, New York. He has been the Anne and Jerome Fisher Director of the Israel Museum since 1996. In 2006, Snyder was awarded the Commendatore dell’Ordine della Stella della Solidarietà Italiana (Commander of the Order of the Star of Italian Solidarity) of the Republic of Italy. In 2010, he received the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters) of the French Republic. And in 2012, he was made an Honorary Citizen of Jerusalem, an honor first awarded to Israel’s first President Chaim Weizmann. Snyder co-authored Museum Design: Planning and Building for Art (Oxford University Press) in 1993; and he authored the book Renewed: The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Campus Renewal Project (Israel Museum, 2011).
James Snyder
Shalom Paul, PhD
Yehezkel Kaufmann Professor Emeritus of Bible Studies, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Shalom Paul is Chairperson of the Dead Sea Scrolls Foundation and is a former chair of the Bible Department of Hebrew University, Jerusalem. He was editor of the Encyclopedia Judaica’s Bible section and has written six books and over forty articles on nature and scientific exploration from a biblical perspective including The Bible & Archaeology.
Shalom Paul
Victor Davis Hanson, PhD
Victor Davis Hanson is a professor of Classics Emeritus at California State University|Fresno, a nationally syndicated columnist for Tribune Media Services, and the Wayne & Marcia Buske Distinguished Fellow in History at Hillsdale College. He is the author of hundreds of articles, book reviews, and newspaper editorials on Greek, agrarian, and military history and essays on contemporary culture. He has written or edited 22 books, including The Savior Generals: How Five Great Commanders Saved Wars That Were Lost – from Ancient Greece to Iraq (2013); The End of Sparta (2011); The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern (2010); Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome (ed.) (2010); The Other Greeks (1998); The Soul of Battle (1999); Carnage and Culture (2001); Ripples of Battle (2003); A War Like No Other (2005); The Western Way of War (1989; 2nd paperback ed., 2000); The Wars of the Ancient Greeks (1999; paperback ed., 2001); and Mexifornia: A State of Becoming (2003).
Victor Davis Hanson
Rabbi Jeffrey Woolf, PhD
Senior Lecturer, Bar Ilan University
Rabbi Jeffrey R. Woolf specializes in the History of Halakhah, Medieval and Renaissance Jewish History, and the inter-action between Judaism, Islam and Christianity. He is the director of Bar Ilan’s Institute for the Study of Post-Talmudic Halakhah. He is the author of forty scholarly monographs and has edited three books, among them the most recent translation of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik’s classic work Kol Dodi Dofeq. His latest book, Sacred Community in Medieval Franco-Germany: The Ashkenazic Qehillah Qedoshah, was released in the Fall of 2014 by E. J. Brill. He is presently working on a book (in Hebrew) of essays on Israeli Orthodoxy and its encounter with modernity in Israel.
Jeffrey Woolf
Rabbi Elie Abadie, MD
Director, Jacob E. Safra Institute of Sephardic Studies, Yeshiva University
Rabbi Dr. Elie Abadie comes from a long and distinguished rabbinical lineage dating back to fifteenth century Spain and Provence. Following the expulsion of Jews from Spain, and later Provence, his family migrated throughout the ages through Italy, the Balkans, Greece, Turkey, Syria, and Lebanon. Rabbi Abadie was born in Beirut, Lebanon, and grew up in Mexico City, coming to the United States to attend Yeshiva University. Rabbi Abadie is the founding rabbi of the Edmond J. Safra Synagogue. He is also a scholar and college teacher of Sephardic Judaism, history, philosophy, and comparative traditional law. Rabbi Abadie follows in the footsteps of the greatest Jewish scholar and philosopher Moses Maimonides, as he is both a rabbi and a physician. Rabbi Abadie maintains a practice in internal medicine and gastroenterology.
Elie Abadie
Shmuel Trigano, PhD
Professor of Sociology of Religion and Politics, University of Paris
Shmuel Trigano is a Resident Scholar at the Herzl Institute in Jerusalem. He is considered one of the leading Jewish philosophers and theologians in the world, having authored 18 books and edited numerous others. His books include Philosophy of the Law and Judaism and the Spirit of the World. Trigano is also founding Director of the College of Jewish Studies at the Alliance Israélite Universelle in Paris, and founding Editor of Pardès: A European Journal of Jewish Studies.
Shmuel Trigano
Yoram Hazony
President, The Herzl Institute
Yoram Hazony is founder and past President of the Shalem Center in Jerusalem, now Shalem College. His books include The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture and The Jewish State: The Struggle for Israel’s Soul. Hazony is director of the John Templeton Foundation’s project in Jewish Philosophical Theology, and a member of the Israel Council for Higher Education committee on Liberal Studies in Israel’s universities. He is a member of the Public Council of the Orthodox rabbinical organization Beit Hillel. He holds a B.A. in East Asian Studies from Princeton University and a PhD in Political Theory from Rutgers University.
Yoram Hazony
Einat Wilf, PhD
Member of Knesset, 2010-2013
Dr. Einat Wilf was a member of the Israeli Parliament from 2010-2013 on behalf of the Labor and Independence parties. She has a BA in Government and Fine Arts from Harvard University, an MBA from INSEAD in France, and a PhD in Political Science from the University of Cambridge. Born and raised in Israel, Dr. Wilf served as an Intelligence Officer in the Israel Defense Forces. Her past experience includes service as Chair of the Education, Sports and Culture Committee, Chair of the Knesset Sub-Committee for Israel and the Jewish People, and Member of the influential Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in the 18th Knesset. She served as the Baye Foundation Adjunct Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a Senior Fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute, Foreign Policy Advisor to Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres, and a strategic consultant with McKinsey & Company. Wilf is the author of six books that explore key issues in Israeli society.
Einat Wilf
Anita Shapira, PhD
Founder, Yitzhak Rabin Center for Israel Studies, Tel Aviv University
Anita Shapira is Professor Emerita in Jewish History at Tel Aviv University. She specializes in the history of Zionism, the Jewish community in Palestine and the state of Israel, with an emphasis on cultural, social and intellectual history. She has published numerous books and articles, among them Berl Katznelson, A Biography of a Socialist Zionist (1984), Land and Power, The Zionist Resort to Force, 1881-1948 (1992), and Yigal Allon, Native Son (2008). Her newest book, Israel: A History, was published in 2013. Shapira has received numerous academic and professional awards and fellowships from Israeli and foreign universities, including Yale, Brandeis, City University of New York, University of Pennsylvania, Stanford, the Oxford Center for Jewish Studies, Harvard, Princeton, Johns Hopkins, University of Toronto, Columbia and others. She is the 2008 Israel Prize for Jewish History laureate.
Anita Shapira
Yossi Klein Halevi
Senior Fellow, Shalom Hartman Institute
Yossi Klein Halevi is a contributing editor of the New Republic. An internationally respected commentator on Israeli and Middle Eastern affairs, he writes regularly for leading American publications, such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Foreign Affairs. He is the author of At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden: A Jew’s Search for God with Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land and Memoirs of a Jewish Extremist. His most recent book Like Dreamers: The Story of the Israeli Paratroopers Who Reunited Jerusalem and Divided A Nation, won the Everett Family Jewish Book of the Year Award (a National Jewish Book Award) and the RUSA Sophie Brody Medal.
Yossi Klein Halevi
Rev. DeeDee Coleman, PhD
Russell Street Missionary Baptist Church
Reverend Coleman is an adjunct professor at the Ecumenical Theological Seminary. She has been in the ministry since 1963. Under the leadership of The Reverend Dr. Charles G. Adams, Senior Pastor of Hartford Memorial Baptist Church in Detroit, Reverend Coleman was ordained as a deacon in 1988; granted her license to preach in 1990; and received full ordination to the ministry in 1993. Reverend Coleman received the 2007 Edwin T. Dahlberg Peace Award for outstanding work in prison ministry and reentry services. The Dahlberg Peace Award, first awarded to Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, is the highest award granted by the American Baptist Churches, USA. She serves as co-chair of the Progressive National Baptist Convention’s Commission on Social Justice and Prison Ministry and is the first female pastor to hold the office of Secretary of the Council of Baptist Pastors of Detroit and Vicinity.
DeeDee Coleman
Rick Richman
Journalist
Rick Richman is an honors graduate of Harvard College and New York University School of Law. He has been a contributor to Commentary Magazine’s website since 2009 and writes regularly for The Israel’s Project’s Tower Magazine. His articles have appeared in American Thinker, The Jewish Journal, The Jewish Press, The New York Sun, and PJ Media. He has edited his own blog, Jewish Current Issues, since 2003.
Rick Richman
Hillel Halkin
Literary Critic, Translator and Author
Hillel Halkin writes frequently on Israel and Jewish culture and politics. His articles have been published in Commentary, The New Republic, The Jerusalem Post and other publications. Halkin translates from Hebrew and Yiddish literature into English. He has translated Sholem Aleichem’s Tevye the Dairyman, and major Hebrew and Israeli novelists. His first original book was Letters to an American Jewish Friend: A Zionist’s Polemic (1977). He expressed why Jewish Americans should immigrate to Israel. Halkin’s second book Across the Sabbath River (2002) is a work of travel literature in which he goes in search of the truth behind the mystery of the Ten Lost Tribes. He became increasingly interested in the Bnei Menashe, who began to immigrate to Israel from India in the late 20th century, and helped to arrange DNA testing in 2003 at Haifa. Since then he has written A Strange Death, a novel based on the local history of Zikhron Ya’akov, His intellectual biography of Yehuda Halevi won a 2010 National Jewish Book Award. His most recent biography, Jabotinsky: A Life was published in 2014.
Hillel Halkin
Benny Morris, PhD
Professor of History in the Middle East, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Benny Morris received his PhD in Modern European History in 1977 from Cambridge University. According to Walter Laqueur, “Morris is one of the most authoritative historians of the Israeli-Arab conflict.” He has been recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship in Peace Studies (1994), as well as fellowships at the Bellagio Academic Center in Italy (summer 1998), Bogliasco-Liguria Study Center in Italy (summer 2003 and summer 2007); and the Leigh Fellowship at Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Judaic Studies in Yarnton (Spring 2011). He has also been visiting professor at several universities around the world. A prolific writer, he is the author of ten books; the latest is One State, Two States: Resolving the Israel/Palestine Conflict (Yale University Press, 2009). His articles and book reviews have been published in scholarly journals, and his articles and book reviews have also been published in the American, British, Italian, Israeli, German and French press.
Benny Morris
Jonathan Sarna, PhD
Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History Brandeis University
Jonathan Sarna serves as Chief Historian of the National Museum of American Jewish History. He was Chief Historian for the 350thcommemoration of the American Jewish community, and is recognized as a leading commentator on American Jewish history, religion and life. In 2009, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. From 1979-1990, Sarna taught at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, where he rose to become Professor of American Jewish history and Director of the Center for the Study of the American Jewish Experience. He has also taught at Yale University, the University of Cincinnati, and at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Sarna has written, edited, or co-edited more than thirty books, including the new When General Grant Expelled the Jews. He is best known for the acclaimed American Judaism: A History. Winner of the Jewish Book Council’s “Jewish Book of the Year Award” in 2004.
Jonathan Sarna
Mark Kramer, PhD
Director, Cold War Studies Program, Harvard University
Mark Kramer is a Senior Fellow of Harvard’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies. Kramer has worked extensively in newly opened archives in Russia, Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, and several Western countries. He has been a consultant for numerous government agencies and international organizations, including the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Defense Department, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, the U.S. Naval War College, the U.S. Agency for International Development, NATO’s Directorate on Science and Technology, the World Bank, and the UN World Institute for Development Economic Research. He has taught at Harvard, Yale, and Brown Universities and was formerly an Academy Scholar in Harvard’s Academy of International and Area Studies and a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University.
Mark Kramer
Emanuele Ottolenghi, PhD
Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Emanuele Ottolenghi has taught at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, as well as the Middle East Centre of St. Anthony’s University, Oxford. Since 2010, Ottolenghi’s work has focused on documenting Iran’s techniques for sanctions’ evasion. His 2011 monograph The Pasdaran: Inside Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards’ Corps explored the IRGC’s political influence as well as its growing commercial empire. Since then, Ottolenghi has been mapping out Iran’s procurement networks. His work on Iran dates back to his time in Brussels, where he was the first policy analyst to publish an in-depth study of European-Iranian economic relations in 2008. His work on Europe’s trade with the Islamic Republic intersected with his knowledge of Iran’s nuclear program to produce the first comprehensive study detailing and advocating European Union’s sanctions against Iran. Under a Mushroom Cloud argued for a sanctions’ regime to slow down Iran’s nuclear procurement and increase Western diplomatic leverage.
Emanuele Ottolenghi
Jeffrey Herf, PhD
Professor of Modern European History, University of Maryland
Jeffrey Herf studies the intersection of ideas and politics in modern European history, specializing in twentieth century Germany. He has published extensively on Germany during the Weimar Republic, Nazi Germany, the Holocaust, and on West and East Germany during the Cold War. His research interests now focus on the Nazi period and German and European history in post-World War II decades up to the collapse of Communism and the end of the Cold War in 1989. Herf has had a variety of fellowships including at Harvard University, the University of Chicago, the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, the German Historical Institute in Washington, the Yitzhak Rabin Center for Israel Studies in Tel Aviv, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC and at the American Academy in Berlin in Fall 2007.
Jeffrey Herf
Ambassador Alan Baker
Director, Institute for Contemporary Affairs, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
Alan Baker is an Israeli expert in international law and former ambassador of the state of Israel to Canada. He was a military prosecutor and senior legal adviser in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and represented the Ministry of Defense at international conferences, and then joined the Foreign Ministry as legal adviser. He participated in the negotiation and drafting of agreements and peace treaties with Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and the Palestinians. In January 2012 he was appointed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the three-member committee chaired by former Justice Edmund Levy to examine the legal aspects of land ownership in Judea and Samaria. The committee’s report, referred to as the Levy Report, was published in Hebrew by the Israeli government in July 2012. Ambassador Baker serves as a member of Israel’s panel of arbitrators at the Permanent Court of Arbitration.
Alan Baker
Eugene Kontorovich
Professor of Law, Northwestern University School of Law
Eugene Kontorovich’s teaching focuses on constitutional and international law. He is a senior researcher at the Kohelet Policy Forum in Jerusalem and is a leading expert on international criminal law. He has published dozens of scholarly articles and has had his work cited by courts in landmark international cases around the world. Kontorovich’s scholarship has been published in leading academic journals and his expertise is often sought out and quoted by major news organizations and numerous television and radio programs. His writings on Israel and international law have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Haaretz, Politico, Jerusalem Post, and numerous other publications. Kontorovich has consulted and advised the U.S. Defense Department, American congressmen, and senior Israeli officials on questions of international law and foreign relations. He has been honored with a fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (2011-12), and with the Federalist Society’s prestigious Bator Award, given annually to a young scholar (under 40) for outstanding scholarship and teaching.
Eugene Kontorovich
Irwin Cotler
Member of Parliament, Canada
Irwin Cotler is Canada’s former Minister of Justice and Attorney General. He is a distinguished academic and a prominent human rights lawyer, whose dedication to humanitarian causes has earned him the Order of Canada and many other awards. A constitutional and comparative law scholar, he litigated every section of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, including landmark cases in the areas of free speech, freedom of religion, women’s rights, minority rights, war crimes justice, prisoners’ rights, and peace law. He has testified as an expert witness on human rights before Parliamentary Committees in Canada, the United States, Russia, Sweden, Norway, and Israel, and has lectured at major international academic and professional gatherings in America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.
Irwin Cotler
Alan Dershowitz
Professor Emeritus, Harvard Law School
Alan Morton Dershowitz is an American lawyer and author. He is a scholar of United States constitutional law and criminal law, and a leading defender of civil liberties. He spent most of his career at Harvard Law School where in 1967, at the age of 28, he became the youngest full professor of law in its history. He held the Felix Frankfurter professorship there from 1993 until his retirement in December 2013. He is now a regular CNN and Fox News contributor and political analyst. Alan is the author of a number of books about politics and law, including Reversal of Fortune: Inside the von Bülow Case (1985), the basis of the 1990 film; Chutzpah (1991); Reasonable Doubts: The Criminal Justice System and the O.J. Simpson Case (1996); the best-selling The Case for Israel (2003); Rights From Wrongs: A Secular Theory of the Origins of Rights(2004); and The Case for Peace (2005).
Alan Dershowitz
Yisrael Medad
Menachem Begin Heritage Center
Yisrael Medad graduated from Yeshiva University with a BA in Political Science in 1969. In 1970, he and his wife immigrated to Israel and served as Director of the Betar Students’ Hostel in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem. Between 1975 and 1977, he served as a Betar representative in the United Kingdom. From 1981 to 1992, he served as a parliamentary aide to Knesset member Geula Cohen, and as an Adviser of International Affairs to cabinet minister Yuval Ne’eman. In 2008, he received his MA at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, specializing in Civic and Democracy Education. Medad is a member of the Executive Board of Israel’s Media Watch. In addition to his blog “My Right Word”, his articles have been published widely, including the Los Angeles Times, Jerusalem Post, and the International Herald Tribune. He has been interviewed and profiled in the BBC and Haaretz. He is co-editor (with Harry Hurwitz) of Peace in the Making: The Menachem Begin-Anwar El-Sadat Personal Correspondence (Gefen, 2011).
Yisrael Medad
Itamar Marcus, PhD
Founding Director, Palestinian Media Watch
Itamar Marcus is one of the foremost authorities on Palestinian ideology and policy. In 1999, Marcus was appointed by the Israel Government to represent Israel in negotiations with the Palestinian Authority on Incitement. He has presented analyses of Palestinian ideologies in academic, cultural and government frameworks, including hearings, lectures and briefings to members of US Congress and Senate; the Canadian, British, French, German, Norwegian, Swiss, Dutch and Australian Parliaments; and members of European Parliament. He has lectured at conferences and at universities and to senior security officials worldwide. He gives analysis on CNN, FOX News, BBC, and the full range of world TV news.
Itamar Marcus
Manfred Gerstenfeld, PhD
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
Manfred Gerstenfeld was born in Vienna, grew up in Amsterdam and moved to Israel in 1968. He has a PhD in Environmental Studies from the University of Amsterdam and served as an officer in the Israeli Army. He has served on the boards of several Israeli companies, including the Israel Corporation. Gerstenfeld was an editor of The Jewish Political Studies Review, co-publisher of the Jerusalem Letter/Viewpoints, Post-Holocaust and Anti-Semitism and Changing Jewish Communities and a member of the council of the Foundation for Research of Dutch Jewry, of which he was formerly the vice-chairman. He is a member of the Board of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and served as Board Chair from 2000 until 2012. Gerstenfeld is the 2012 recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Journal for the Study of Antisemitism. Author of over 20 books, one of his most recent is Demonizing Israel and the Jews (RVP Press, 2013).
Manfred Gerstenfeld
Luba Mayekiso
South Africa National Director, International Christian Embassy Jerusalem
Luba Mayekiso is actively involved in Lay Ministry within the Anglican Church and serves as trustee and committee member to various faith-based Judeo-Christian organizations, including Group 18, Growing the Church, CCfm Radio, Archbishop’s Education Endowment Trust, South African Friends of Israel, and Samaritan’s Purse. He received his law degree from the University of Fort Hare | Alice and his professional experience includes the financial services industry and board positions in the energy and mining exploration companies. He lives in Cape Town with his wife Ncedi and their four children.
Luba Mayekiso
Shimon Samuels, PhD
Director for International Liaison, Simon Wiesenthal Center
Shimon Samuels was born in England. He moved to Israel in 1963 and received a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and History from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, returning to England for his second degree, a M.Sc. (Econ.) in International Relations from the London School of Economics. He earned his PhD in a combined program with the University of Pennsylvania and the Sorbonne, Paris, and then served as Deputy Director of the Leonard Davis Institute for International Relations at Hebrew University. Samuels then was appointed European Director of the Anti-Defamation League based in Paris, and later became Israel Director of the American Jewish Committee. He serves as Honorary President of the Europe-Israel Forum.
Shimon Samuels
Brig. General (res.) Yosef Kuperwasser
Director General, Ministry of Strategic Affairs, Israel
Until 2006, Yosef Kuperwasser served as head of the Analysis and Production Division of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Directorate of Military Intelligence, where he was responsible for preparing Israel’s national intelligence assessments and for early warning. After his retirement, he served as Vice President of Global CST, a security consulting company, and led its consulting activities for the government of Colombia. During his military career, Kuperwasser served as Assistant Defense Attaché for Intelligence at the Israeli Embassy in Washington DC and as Intelligence Officer of the IDF Central Command. He was involved in shaping the way Israel copes with the threat of terror and understands regional developments and in sharing those understandings with American and other foreign officials. He was also responsible for much of the intelligence support to the judicial system in fighting terrorism and appeared quite often as a witness in the major trials that dealt with terror in general and with terror financing in particular.
Yosef Kuperwasser
Bret Stephens
Deputy Editor, Editorial Page, The Wall Street Journal
Bret Stephens is the deputy editorial page editor responsible for the international opinion pages of The Wall Street Journal. He also writes “Global View,” the paper’s weekly foreign-affairs column, and is a member of the Journal’s editorial board. He is a regular panelist on The Journal Editorial Report, a weekly political talk show broadcast on Fox News Channel. Stephens joined the Journal in 1998 as an op-ed editor and moved to Brussels the following year, where he wrote editorials and edited a column on the European Union. He left Dow Jones in January 2002 to become editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post, a position he assumed at age 28. At the Post, he was responsible for the paper’s news, editorial, international and electronic editions. He oversaw the paper’s most extensive redesign in its then 70-year history and also wrote a weekly column. Mr. Stephens returned to the Journal in late 2004.
Bret Stephens
For us, truth matters. It matters tremendously. And that’s why we call ourselves Doc Emet Productions. Emet means truth in Hebrew. We are all about truth in film.
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