2008 Woodie Awards
Brandeis Conference Introduces New Center for Israel Studies
Yaelle Frohlich
Issue date: 5/13/08 Section: Israel
Brandeis University hosted roughly 300 people at a conference entitled "Visions & Visionaries: Imagining Israel at Sixty" on April 6, including Dr. Ruth Bevan and twelve Yeshiva University (YU) students, most of whom are enrolled in Bevan's Israeli Political Thought honors course. The conference celebrated the opening of Brandeis's Schusterman Center for Israel Studies, which will be devoted to the study of modern Israel and will, according to Brandeis University President Jehuda Reinharz, be "based on scholarship and not advocacy."
Lynn Schusterman, chair of the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, hopes the new center is just the beginning of many similar endeavors in the nation's colleges and universities. "Israel, past, present, and future deserves its place in the academic world," she said. "I envision a time…where every major institution of higher learning in this country will offer at least one course about Israel, where everyone recognizes Israel as the Jewish homeland, as a key ally of the United States."
A panel of three speakers featuring David Makovsky, Ruth Gavison, and Hillel Halkin commented on challenges facing Israel and the Jewish Diaspora and fielded questions from the audience, including several posed by YU students.
Gavison, a professor of human rights at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, spoke about Israel as both a Jewish state and a democracy. She insisted that Israel has a Jewish majority, but is not a theocracy, and that the "religious monopoly" over marriage and divorce is "a bad thing" and "should be abolished."
Following Gavison's presentation, Makovsky, a Middle East professor at Johns Hopkins University, spoke about the Iranian nuclear threat. According to Makovsky, the new president of the United States will focus on dialogue and negotiations with Iran, leaving Israel as the sole country that may launch an attack in the foreseeable future against the uranium-enriching Islamic state. As for this year, "only Israel," he maintained, "will be considering a military operation against Iran in 2008."
Lynn Schusterman, chair of the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, hopes the new center is just the beginning of many similar endeavors in the nation's colleges and universities. "Israel, past, present, and future deserves its place in the academic world," she said. "I envision a time…where every major institution of higher learning in this country will offer at least one course about Israel, where everyone recognizes Israel as the Jewish homeland, as a key ally of the United States."
A panel of three speakers featuring David Makovsky, Ruth Gavison, and Hillel Halkin commented on challenges facing Israel and the Jewish Diaspora and fielded questions from the audience, including several posed by YU students.
Gavison, a professor of human rights at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, spoke about Israel as both a Jewish state and a democracy. She insisted that Israel has a Jewish majority, but is not a theocracy, and that the "religious monopoly" over marriage and divorce is "a bad thing" and "should be abolished."
Following Gavison's presentation, Makovsky, a Middle East professor at Johns Hopkins University, spoke about the Iranian nuclear threat. According to Makovsky, the new president of the United States will focus on dialogue and negotiations with Iran, leaving Israel as the sole country that may launch an attack in the foreseeable future against the uranium-enriching Islamic state. As for this year, "only Israel," he maintained, "will be considering a military operation against Iran in 2008."
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