War and Human Nature June 9, 2014 – June 20, 2014tikvahfund.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/WHN... · Minister and Cabinet members. Mr. Ben-Barak earned his B.A. in political science

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War and Human Nature June 9, 2014 – June 20, 2014

Participant Biographies

Meydan Ben-Barak Israel

Meydan Ben-Barak works in the Situation Room of the Israeli National Security Council, where on a daily basis he formulates an integrative and updated National Situation Report for the Prime Minister and Cabinet members. Mr. Ben-Barak earned his B.A. in political science and Middle Eastern studies from the Hebrew University in 2013. He is currently working as an assistant researcher in a terrorism research project under Dr. Eitan Alimi and is studying for his M.A. in political studies, focusing on terrorism and civil defense. Geoffrey Claussen United States



Geoffrey Claussen is the Lori and Eric Sklut Emerging Scholar in Jewish Studies, coordinator of the Jewish studies program, and assistant professor of religious studies at Elon University. He received his rabbinic ordination and Ph.D. in Jewish thought at the Jewish Theological Seminary. Before his appointment at Elon he served as a fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia and a visiting instructor at Oberlin College. He is currently completing a book titled, Sharing the Burden: Rabbi Simhah Zissel Ziv and the Path of Musar, which explores the thought of one of the early leaders of the Musar movement. His articles include a piece forthcoming in the Journal of Scriptural Reasoning titled, “A Jewish Perspective on War, Scripture, and Moral Accounting.” Joseph Falvey United States

Joe Falvey is a Captain and Infantry Officer in the U.S. Marine Corps. He has deployed twice to Helmand Province, Afghanistan as a weapons platoon commander and advisor to the Afghan National Army. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in history, magna cum laude, from the University of Notre Dame in 2009. Currently, Captain Falvey is the Assistant Operations Officer of 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines. This fall he will transition to the Marine Corps Reserves and begin studies at Yale Law School. He hopes to work in foreign policy, constitutional law, and national security law and policy. Jonathan Fredman United States Jonathan Fredman is an associate general counsel at a U.S. government agency. He has held a number of legal and policy positions, including Assistant Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Special Programs, Chief Counsel to the Director of Central Intelligence Counterterrorist Center, and Special Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence. He also served as adjunct faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania Law School for a number of years, teaching national security law, the law of foreign intelligence, and the law of counterterrorism. Mr. Fredman has been published in the ABA National Security Law Report, the Yale Law and Policy Review, and Studies in



Intelligence. He is a recipient of the George H.W. Bush Award for Excellence in Counterterrorism, the National Intelligence Exceptional Achievement Medal, and the Middle East Mission Manager Medallion. He received his A.B. in public and international affairs from Princeton University and his J.D. from Columbia Law School. Before joining the government, he was an attorney with Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison and a law clerk for U.S. District Judge Charles M. Metzner of the Southern District of New York. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Alexandria Frisch United States

Alexandria Frisch recently earned her Ph.D. from New York University’s Hebrew and Judaic Studies department, focusing on Second Temple period history and the Dead Sea scrolls. She also completed a Master’s degree in Jewish education from Baltimore Hebrew University in 2004 and a Master’s degree in religion from Yale University in 2006. Frisch has been a scholar-in-residence at The Tikvah Center for Jewish Law and Civilization at NYU and a fellow at the Center for Jewish Law and Contemporary Civilization at Cardozo Law School. She is currently a visiting assistant professor in Jewish studies at Ursinus College. Yagil Henkin Israel



Yagil Henkin teaches military history at the Israel Defense Forces Command and Staff College. He was a fellow of the Adelson Institute of Strategic Studies and the Shalem Center and worked as a business intelligence specialist for a security consulting company. Dr. Henkin has published articles in academic and military journals, both open and classified, as well as writing op-eds for newspapers including the New York Times and the Jerusalem Post. He is the author of Either We Win or We Perish: A History of the First Chechen War, 1994-1996 (Hebrew, 2007) and the forthcoming Exodus in Reverse: Military History of the Sinai-Suez Campaign, 1956 and Like Fish in the Bush: Rhodesia at War, 1965-1980 (Hebrew). He also co-authored two hiking guides with Jaacob Saar: Israel National Trail and the Jerusalem Trail and Long-Distance Hikes in Israel (2011) and is working on subsequent editions. He is also working on a guide to Omaha Beach in Normandy. Anne Herzberg Israel

Anne Herzberg is the legal advisor of NGO Monitor. She is a graduate of Oberlin College and Columbia University Law School. Before joining NGO Monitor, she worked as an attorney in New York. Her areas of research interest include business and human rights, international human rights law, the laws of armed conflict, universal jurisdiction, international fact-finding, non-governmental organizations, and the United Nations. She is the author of the widely cited NGO Lawfare: Exploitation of Courts in the Arab-Israeli Conflict, co-author of Best Practices for Human Rights and Humanitarian NGO Fact-finding, and co-editor of The Goldstone Report "Reconsidered": A Critical Analysis. Ms. Herzberg's articles and op-eds have appeared in many publications, including the American Journal of International Law, Ha'aretz, the Jerusalem Post, YnetNews, and the Wall Street Journal. Aryeh Klapper



United States

Rabbi Aryeh Klapper is the dean of the Center for Modern Torah Leadership and rosh beit midrash of its summer beit midrash program, a member of the beit din of Boston, and an instructor of rabbinics and bioethics at Gann Academy. He previously served as Orthodox adviser and director of education at Harvard Hillel and as Talmud curriculum chair at Maimonides High School. Rabbi Klapper lectures in many public and academic forums and has published in numerous popular and scholarly journals. His scholarship focuses on intersection of Torah with political theory and practice. Much of his Torah can be found at www.torahleadership.org. Charlie Laderman United Kingdom

Charlie Laderman is completing a Ph.D. in international history at Sidney Sussex College, University of Cambridge. He holds a Bachelor of Arts with honors in history and politics from the University of Nottingham and a Master of Philosophy in history from the University of Cambridge, receiving numerous awards for his performance in each degree. Next year he will take up a research fellowship at Peterhouse College and an affiliated lectureship in European geopolitics in the department of politics and international studies at Cambridge. He was previously a Fox International Fellow at the Whitney and Betty Macmillan Center for International and Area Studies

http://www.torahleadership.org/



and Smith Richardson Fellow in International Security Studies, both at Yale University, and an Arts and Humanities Research Council Fellow at the Kluge Center, Library of Congress. He has published articles in academic journals, periodicals and magazines, including Standpoint and the Social Affairs Unit. Dan Landau Israel

Dan Landau is head of policy implementation at the Israel Democracy Institute in Jerusalem and has been with the IDI since June, 2013. Before holding his current position, he was Director General and Chief Executive Officer of the Knesset for four years (2009-2013). His previous public service positions included parliamentary assistant (1994-2001), senior advisor to the Minister of Communications (2001-2003), and chief of the Knesset Speaker's staff (2003-2006). He also worked as an attorney, focusing on administrative and constitutional law, representing public petitioners, and serving as an advisor on legislation. In addition, he was involved in various projects in the field of communications. He holds an LL.B. from Bar-Ilan University and is a member of the Israel Bar Association. Dan Landau, 44, is married to Adina, with five children, and lives in Efrat.



Yogev Moyal Israel

Yogev Moyal is a graduate of the Public Policy Program for Excellent Students at the Jewish Statesmanship Center and is exected to begin his Masters in International Economics and Energy in the SAIS at Johns Hopkins University in fall 2014. Yogev has served in the Elite paratrooper unit Maglan for the past decade. His recent position was of Company Commander (2010 – 2013), in which he led multiple, complex combat operations during Operation “Pillar of Defense” and others. For this position he received the Chief of Staff Award for outstanding service in 2012. Mr. Moyal graduated Suma Cam Laude from Bar Ilan University majoring in International Affairs and Business Administration and Published an Honored Seminar Paper "Combat under fire – Values, Post-modernism, and Everything in Between” in the premier Israeli military journalMa’archot. He is also a Scuba diver, Long-distance runner and worldwide Traveler. Hillel Ofek United States



Hillel Ofek is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is studying political science with concentrations in international relations and political theory. His dissertation is on the role of honor in Anglo-American foreign policy. Born in Israel and raised in Jerusalem and Chicago, Mr. Ofek was educated at Kenyon College (B.A. 2007). After graduating, Ofek spent several years in Washington, D.C., where he was a research assistant for Charles Krauthammer; a researcher and writer for the public relations firm Berman and Company; and a founding editor of the public policy quarterly National Affairs. His publications include articles and essays in The New Atlantis and the Cambridge Review of International Affairs. He has been the recipient of a number of fellowships and awards, including the 2010 Claremont Institute Publius Fellowship, the 2010-2011 Earhart Fellowship, and the 2013-2014 Intercollegiate Studies Institute Western Civilization Fellowship. Mr. Ofek attended the 2013 Tikvah Project on Jewish Thought at Princeton University. He is the executive director of Pro Musica Hebraica, an organization devoted to bringing lost or forgotten Jewish classical music to the concert hall. Elad Popovich Israel

Elad Popovich is a visiting research fellow affiliated with the Roger Hertog Program on Law and National Security at Columbia Law School and a 2013-2014 Tikvah Fellow. He is serving as a representative to the United Nations for the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists (IAJLJ). Mr. Popovich is also a director of the Liberal Democracies Facing Asymmetric Conflicts project (LD-AC) at the University of Haifa. He previously served as secretary general and an executive committee member of the Association of Civil-Military Scholars in Israel (2012-2013). Elad is an attorney-at-law and serves on the Israel Bar Association’s military and security national committee. He is also an associate fellow of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT). He is currently pursuing doctoral studies in international relations at the University of Haifa; he holds an M.A. in political science from Tel Aviv University and an LL.B. and B.A. from the Interdisciplinary Center-Herzliya (IDC). His professional specializations are laws of war (in the context of asymmetric conflicts), counter-terrorism and counter-intelligence, cyber threats,



psychological warfare, autonomous weapons systems, psycho-strategy, media and security, Palestinian terrorist organizations; Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran, and global jihad. Steven Pruzansky United States

Rabbi Steven Pruzansky is the spiritual leader of Congregation Bnai Yeshurun in Teaneck, New Jersey, one of the most vibrant centers of Orthodox life in the Americas. A former attorney, he is a graduate of Columbia University and the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. He is the author of two books: A Prophet for Today-Contemporary Lessons from the Book of Yehoshua and Judges for our Time-Contemporary Lessons from the Book of Shoftim, both published by Geffen Publishing Company, and of the forthcoming The Jewish Ethic of Personal Responsibility. Mitchell Rocklin United States

Mitchell Rocklin has been the rabbi of Congregation Ahavath Achim of Fairfield, Connecticut since 2008. He has served in the U.S. Army Chaplain Corps as a reservist since 2006 and is currently a Battalion Chaplain with the rank of Captain. Rabbi Rocklin is a doctoral candidate in the Ph.D. program in history at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where he is



completing a dissertation on the American Whig Party and slavery. He is a member of the Rabbinical Council of America's executive committee and its military chaplaincy committee. Hanan Rubin Israel

Hanan Rubin is a Jerusalem city councilman. He served in an Israel Defense Forces special combat unit; after suffering an injury, he volunteered for the Education Corps and graduated from its officers’ course. He was a founder of the IDF’s “Nativ” course, which focuses on the development of Jewish-Zionist identity and represents the first phase in the conversion to Judaism of non-Jewish Israeli soldiers. Mr. Rubin has worked in various educational settings: as a teacher in the Keshet School, in a program for youth from North America and France, and in institutions for those with disabilities. He has also been active in volunteer activities and founded Hakova Hahafuch, a crowd-funding social business platform that has raised over a million NIS to benefit worthy causes. In 2007, with a group of teachers, Mr. Rubin founded New Spirit, an organization of high school teachers who campaigned to unseat the long-term head of the secondary school teachers’ union. After failing in its campaign, New Spirit became E Is Education, a protest group that gave rise to the 2011 educational discourse protest led by Mr. Rubin. He was also co-founder of the educational program Derech Eretz, which operates four preparatory programs for youth from the social periphery in southern Israel. He led the protest concerning long term care insurance that gave rise to a comprehensive reform of one of Israel’s major insurance providers. In the last municipal elections Mr. Rubin led Wake Up Jerusalem, an all-volunteer social action movement, that won four seats on the City Council. On the City Council he received the “young students and young families” portfolio and was charged by the mayor with engaging the main issue that threatens Jerusalem: the emigration of young people. He was also appointed to deal with the connection between diaspora Jews and Jerusalem and was elected chairman of the municipal funding committee, which supports non-profit organizations operating in Jerusalem with hundreds of millions of shekels. Mr. Rubin holds a B.A. in Jewish studies in history and an M.A. in Jewish education from the Hebrew



University and is a member of President Shimon Peres’s Young Professionals’ Forum. He is married to Halel; they have four children. He lives in Rechavya, is an avid Hapoel Jerusalem basketball fan, and loves to travel and read. He is also a gadget lover and plays guitar and piano late at night. Thomas Storch United States

Thomas Storch is the co-founder of The Zosima Group, which provides strategic advice on complex geopolitical and regulatory issues and pursues private investments in a range of sectors, including natural resources and energy. Before Zosima, Mr. Storch worked at several investment and advisory firms in New York. He received a B.A. from Harvard College in social studies in 2003 and is currently pursuing an M.A. from the war studies department at King’s College London. Elad Uzan Israel



Elad Uzan recently finished his L.L.M. at the Interdisciplinary Institute-Herzliya, with a thesis on the relationship between philanthropy and financial performance in public corporations in Israel, after finishing his L.L.B. in government and law at the same institution. He is a member of the Israeli bar. Mr. Uzan is completing (due Oct. 2014) his M.A. in American Jewish studies at the University of Haifa and is planning to pursue his Ph.D. in legal theory and philosophy under the auspices of Professor Moshe Halbertal at the Hebrew University. Mr. Uzan has published many academic and popular articles on various themes and problems in Jewish history and contemporary Jewish culture. His articles have appeared in specialized academic journals such as Corporations and New Directions and in newspapers and magazines such as the Jerusalem Post, the Jerusalem Post Magazine, Ma'ariv, and more. In addition, Elad is a pianist and the classical music critic for Yediot Aharonot, where he publishes a weekly column as well as concert reviews. Carmit Valensi Israel

Carmit Valensi is a senior research analyst in the Research Division of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Directorate of Military Intelligence and is also a Neubauer Research Fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv. Ms. Valensi is a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Political Science at Tel Aviv University, where her doctoral dissertation explores Hamas, Hizbullah, and FARC as “hybrid actors.” Ms. Valensi specializes in the contemporary Middle East, strategic studies, and terrorism and has published in these areas in academic and professional periodicals. She was a visiting research fellow at the Fox Fellow Program for International and Area Studies at Yale University (2010-2011) and a senior research fellow at the Dado Center for Interdisciplinary Military Studies and consulted for and served in the Intelligence Corps of the IDF.



David M. Weinberg Israel

David M. Weinberg is a diplomatic columnist for the Israeli newspapers Israel Hayom and the Jerusalem Post, writing on Middle East strategic affairs, Israeli diplomacy and defense strategy, intelligence matters, party politics in Israel, religion and state, Israel-diaspora relations, and anti-Semitism. He serves as director of public affairs at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies; a leading think-tank; heads the Israel Office of Canada’s Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs; and coordinates development and public affairs at the Sheba Medical Center/Tel Hashomer Hospital. He has been senior advisor to Deputy Prime Minister Natan Sharansky, coordinator of the Global Forum against Anti-Semitism in the Office of the Prime Minister, spokesman of the Herzliya Conference on National Security, and spokesman of Bar-Ilan University. He holds degrees in international relations from Bar-Ilan University and the University of Toronto and studied for several years at Yeshivot Hakotel and Har Etzion. He and his wife Bonnie live in Nof Ayalon in central Israel and have six children, most of whom are currently serving in the Israel Defense Forces or studying at university. His columns are archived at www.davidmweinberg.com.

http://www.davidmweinberg.com/



Lauren Weiner United States

Lauren Weiner has worked as an editor, reporter, and congressional staffer and spent three years as a speechwriter to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. Currently the associate editor of Law and Liberty (libertylawsite.org), she has written on U.S. history, foreign policy, and culture for the Weekly Standard, Commentary, First Things, American Communist History, the Wall Street Journal, the American Interest, Policy Review, the New Criterion, the Washington Times, and the Baltimore Sun.

http://libertylawsite.org/

Documents

War and Human Nature June 9, 2014 – June 20, 2014tikvahfund.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/WHN... · Minister and Cabinet members. Mr. Ben-Barak earned his B.A. in political science