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Ofir Haivry, VP and Director of the National Strategy Initiative, and Herzl Institute President Yoram Hazony argue in a joint article for Tablet Magazine that the creation of a well-armed, autonomous, and perhaps ultimately independent Druze region in southern Syria may be the West’s best chance at stemming the spread of radical Islamism.
July 7, 2015
As the Syrian state unravels, the United States and other Western powers are finding it increasingly difficult to see how they can stem the rise of jihadist organizations like al-Qaida and the Islamic State (IS), while limiting the unfolding humanitarian and security disaster that has left more than 200,000 dead and made refugees of close to 10 million people so far. read more
Ofir Haivry, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Director of the National Strategy Initiative at the Herzl Institute, argues in an article for Ynet that “as jihadist attacks on Druze villages increase, it’s time for Israel to make a decision – either to take action or to witness a bloodbath on the other side of its northern border.”
In an essay in Mosaic Magazine responding to Eric Cohen’s proposal for a new Jewish conservative agenda, Yoram Hazony asks “What are Jewish Conservatives Planning to Conserve?”.
Resident Fellow Shmuel Trigano recently penned essays for The New English Review and The Jewish Review of Books on French Anti-Semitism and recent events in France.
The Herzl Institute has concluded an agreement with the RAND Corporation to conduct a joint initiative called “Rethinking Long-Term Strategy for Israel.” Scholars from the Herzl Institute’s National Strategy Initiative will collaborate with RAND scholars, as well as other leading figures from Israel, the United States and other nations to analyze developments and offer alternative strategies for the Jewish State in a radically changed Middle East. The National Strategy Initiative is directed by Herzl Institute Vice President Ofir Haivry.
Project Summary
Herzl Institute National Strategy Initiative Working Group
The Herzl Institute has awarded $560,000 in fellowships to twelve new projects in the field of Jewish Philosophical Theology. The award winners are: Joshua Amaru (Bar-Ilan U.), James Arcadi (U. of Bristol), Craig Bartholomew (Redeemer University College), James Diamond (Waterloo U.), Melis Erdur (Tel Aviv U.), Lenn Goodman (Vanderbilt), Berel Dov Lerner (Western Galilee College), Alan Mittleman (JTS), Alex Sztuden (Independent Scholar), Shmuel Trigano (U. of Paris), Shira Weiss (Yeshiva U.), Jacob Wright (Emory). Fellowships will be for a two-year period beginning Fall 2015, and are aimed at producing works of constructive Jewish theology and philosophy based on a renewed engagement with the Hebrew Bible and classical rabbinic texts. The fellowships are funded by a generous grant from the John Templeton Foundation.
Cambridge University Press will publish a revised edition of Herzl Institute President Yoram Hazony’s book The Dawn on the political philosophy and theology of the biblical book of Esther. The Cambridge edition will include a new Introduction by the author, and is expected in early 2016—hopefully in time for Purim!
“A thoughtful, provocative, gracefully written, assiduously researched and elegantly argued piece of work… worthwhile and stimulating” – Calev Ben David, Jerusalem Post
Herzl Institute Senior Fellow Joshua Berman published a pioneering essay in Mosaic magazine on the question of whether it makes sense to say “We were slaves in Egypt” on Passover. Berman, who is author of Created Equal: How the Bible Broke with Ancient Political Thought, challenges the “double-standard” employed by many academic Bible scholars regarding biblical texts, and offers fresh evidence in support of the idea that there really were Israelites in Egypt around the time of Pharaoh Ramesses II.
Herzl Institute President Yoram Hazony delivered the Second Isaiah Berlin Lecture at Oxford University, sponsored by Chabad of Oxford and the Berlin family. The lecture, entitled “The Place of the Jew in Contemporary Philosophy,” was delivered on Tuesday, February 10, 2015.
Aryeh Tepper, recent post-doctoral fellow at the Herzl Institute, explores the quest of Aramean Christians to be recognized as a legal minority in Israel. He writes, “Long identified as part of the country’s minority Arab population, Israel’s Christian community has recently begun asserting its own unique identity—one that is deeply tied to the Jewish State of Israel.
Read the article in The Tower.
