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The Forum of Regional Thinking Associates 
Dr. Assaf David is a founding member and academic director of the Forum for Regional Thinking (FORTH). He teaches at the Department of Political Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Contact: assaf.david@mail.huji.ac.il
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Prof. Nimrod Hurvitz is a co-founder of The Forum for Regional Thinking (FORTH). He teaches in the Department of Middle East Studies at Ben Gurion University. His research covers medieval and modern Islamic movements.
Contact: nimrod.hurvitz@gmail.com
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Prof. Dror Ze’evi is a co-founder of The Forum for Regional Thinking (FORTH). He teaches and studies Ottoman social and cultural history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Contact: drorzeevi@gmail.com
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Lives in Jerusalem - Old City
PhD in Humanities Sciences, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Dissertation: Pious Palestinian Women’s Religious and Political Roles in Al-Haram Al-Sharif.
MA in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Dissertation: Hizb at-tahrir al islami fi falasteen, al tarikhwal-idiologiyya (Islamic Hizb at-Tahrir, History and Ideology)
BA History, Birzeit University, Ramallah
Major specialized:
1 - Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and Developments in the Palestinian and Israeli Societies 1948 – Present.
2 - Jewish – Palestinian Conflict on Jerusalem (Temple Mount/Al-Haram al-Sharif)
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
- Israeli Curriculum in Arab Schools in Jerusalem: Advantages and Disadvantages, presented at the Jerusalem Conference on Education, 2014.
- The Murabitat Foundation and Activities in Al-Haram al-Sharif, Presentation at the Jerusalem Institute for Israeli Studies, 2015.
- Questions on Future Strategies of Hizb al-Tahrir in Palestine, presented at the Academic Dialogue with Hizb at-Tahrir Conference, Ramallah, 2016.
Jewish Groups - Murabitat activities in Al-Haram al-Sharif , conference at Jerusalem Institute for Political Studies , November 26,2017.
Jewish and Palestinian women activities at Al-Haram al-Sharif/ Temple Mount , Conference at The Leonard Davis Institute for International Relations 26-may2018.
. Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif: Conflict, Culture, Law: an international conference at the Harvard Law School, November 28-29, 2017.
Two weeks as a lecturer in International Relations dep. in Middle East Technical University, in Turkey- Ankara , about Israeli-Palestinian Conflict since 1917 until Present (Erasmus program).
Work at PNA - Palestinian Researches Center - Head of Israel's Studies Department (2017 until present)
Languages: English, Hebrew, and Arabic
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Inbal Ben Yehuda is a researcher and social activist. She holds an MA degree from the Department of Middle East and African History at Tel Aviv University. She mainly focuses on the histories, politics and cultures of Sudan, Eritrea and Ethiopia.
Contact: inbalbenye@gmail.com
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Idan Barir is a research associate at the Forum for Regional Thinking (FORTH), focusing on Iraq and its religious and ethnic minorities. He is a PhD candidate in the school of historical studies at Tel Aviv University.
Contact: idanbarir@gmail.com
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A researcher at the NGO Ir Amim (city of nations) which works in Jerusalem in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Through his work he is exposed to the details of Israeli policy on Jerusalem and the ways in which the capital of the Jewish state fights the reality of its bi-nationality.
Many of his insights are through his involvement with the "engaged dharma" activist group. There he gains close acquaintance with Palestinian partners and communities and what it means to live under Israeli military rule.
In his writing he will describe Palestinian life and Israeli military rule (what is usually called human rights) and will ask questions regarding power, lack of it and the fight for freedom.
Contact at avivsky@gmail.com.
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Dr. Moshe Terdiman is a research fellow at the Forum for Regional Thinking, the founder and director of the Think Tank for the Research of Islam and Muslims in Africa (RIMA), and a research fellow at the Ezri Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies.
Within the framework of the Forum, Moshe will write on environmental issues in the Arab and Muslim world, Islam and the environment and environmental security.
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Dr. Shmuel Lederman is a postdoctoral research fellow at the School of Politics and International Relations at University College Dublin, Ireland. He teaches at the department of History, Philosophy and Judaic Studies at the Open University of Israel, and at The Weiss-Livnat International MA Program in Holocaust Studies at the University of Haifa, Israelز
Contact: shmulikled@gmail.com.
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Ayelet Levi holds an MA in Middle Eastern and African studies from Tel Aviv University. She is an analyst for Middle Eastern affairs at the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a guest writer in the periodicals of The Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies (MDC) - "Ifriqiya" and "Middle East Crossroads".
Ayelet's final paper for MA focused on Civil Society in North Africa. Her Ph.D. dissertation will focus on culture and politics in Morocco.
Her research in The Forum for Regional Thinking focuses on The Maghreb Countries, primarily Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria, with special focus on social and cultural issues (e.g. Gender, Language, Youth or patterns of protest).
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Einat Levi is an entrepreneur and a researcher. She has been engaged in Morocco Since 2013 and founded “Connection to Morocco”, to promote ties and develop partnerships with Morocco in various fields between the private sector and NGOs.
Einat’s fields of study in The Forum for Regional Thinking are civic relations between Israel and the Middle East, Morocco and what stands on its social and political agenda, entrepreneurship and hi-tech in the Middle East and Middle Eastern culture in the MENA region as within the Israeli society itself.
In addition to her engagement with the Forum, Einat is a researcher at Mitvim - The Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policy, and a fellow in Mandel Program for Leadership in Jewish Culture. Einat has a vast experience in online learning (e-learning) pedagogy.
As part of her previous work at the Center for Educational Technology Einat lead several projects in the field of Jewish Peoplehood and promoting the connection between Israel and Jewish communities around the world. In 2016 Einat initiated a digital documentation project aiming to preserve heritage of Jews originated in Morocco, Egypt and Lebanon through virtual communities in social networks and virtual tours in Jewish heritage sites. Einat holds a B.A. in Middle Eastern Studies and International Relations and M.A. in Research, Management and Conflict Resolution, both from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
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Inbal Nissim-Louvton holds an MA in Middle Eastern and African studies from Tel Aviv University. She teaches at the Department of History, Philosophy and Judaic Studies at the Open University in Israel.
Inbal’s final paper for MA explores British-Saudi Relations by focusing on Harry St. John Philby’s mission to Ibn-Saud during the First World War.
Her research at FORTH focuses on Yemen as well as gender in the Middle East.
Contact: inbalnissim@gmail.com
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Dr Iris Fruchter-Ronen teaches at the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies and in the Department of Culture and Film Studies, University of Haifa.
Her research at the Forum for Regional Thinking focuses on popular culture and gender in the Middle East.
Contact: irisfruro@gmail.com
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Elie Friedman (Ph.D.) is an adjunct lecturer at School of Communication, Bar-Ilan University, and a visiting lecturer at University of Maryland, Department of Israel Studies. He is the Director of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Strategic Dialogue, Netanya Academic College, and an assoicate research at the Harry S. Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace associate researcher at the Hebrew University.
His research interests include political discourse in national and international contexts with an emphasis on conflict resolution, public diplomacy, and media studies. His first book (with Dalia Gavriely-Nuri) Israeli Discourse and the West Bank: Dialectics of Normalization and Estrangement was published in 2018 by Routledge. He has published articles in several leading discourse and communication journals, including Discourse & Society (2014), International Journal of Communications (2017), and Journalism: Theory, Practice & Criticism (2018).
Contact: elie.friedman@mail.huji.ac.ilpersonal page
Eran Tzidkiyahu is a research associate at the Forum for Regional Thinking (FORTH), focusing on religious nationalism and sacred spaces in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He is a PhD candidate in the Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po).
Contact: tsidky1@gmail.com
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Prof. Yaël Ronen is a faculty member and teaches international law at the Academic Center for Law and Science, and a research fellow at the Minerva Center for Human Rights, Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Her publications are available here.
Contact: yael.ronen@mail.huji.ac.il
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Dr. Liora Sion is a sociologist who specialized in peacekeeping, peacebuilding, gender and ethnicity. She got her PhD from Amsterdam School for Social Research and was a postdoctoral fellow at Olin Institute for Strategic Studies, Harvard University, and the Sociology Department at Northwestern University.
She was a lecturer at the University of Nottingham. Her forthcoming book, sponsored by the British Academy for Small Grants, focuses on UN agencies involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Liora will be mainly writing about the UN, military and informal relations between Jewish-Israelis and Palestinians.
See list of publications here.
Contact: liora1234@gmail.com
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She completed her doctoral studies at Tel Aviv University while writing on the material culture of the Ottoman elite in the 18th century. After she served as a research fellow at the Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations (RCAC) in Istanbul, she returned to Israel and taught at various universities and colleges.
Today, Tsameret writes, lecture and initiate academic collaborations and events in the fields of Turkish society and culture, and thus seeks to contribute a different angle and understanding of Turkey in this region.
In the Forum Tsameret will deal with the analysis of the social, cultural and political processes currently taking place in Turkey and in comparison with Israel.
TsameretL@vanleer.org.il
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Idan Yaron, Ph.D. in sociology and social anthropology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Areas of specialization: cultural studies; research of radical and extreme right in Israel; military studies; the sociology of school; the study of human-animal relationships; editing studies.
Books: The Toilet in the Symbolic Sphere. Tel Aviv: Resling, 2005 (Hebrew); Reflections: Visiting the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo. Jerusalem: Carmel, 2010 (Hebrew); Snapshots from the Life of a Secondary School (with Yoram Harpaz). Tel Aviv: Sifriat Poalim and Mofet Institute, 2015 (Hebrew); War Casualties: Killing-Wounding on the Battlefield. Jerusalem: Carmel, 2017 (Hebrew); The Shkolnic Saga: The True Story of a Tied Terrorist. Haifa: Pardes, 2017 (Hebrew); Military Law and Ethics. Jerusalem, Carmel, 2018 (Hebrew).
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Elad’s fields of study in The Forum for Regional Thinking include topics related to preachers, activists, and Muslim organizations in the United States, who are on the front of Da’wa activity, especially after the September-11 attacks.
The analysis of doctrine and activity opens a hatch which enables to analyze of central phenomenons and trends from the theological, political and social areas that are essential to many actual topics, such as: Embracing Islam, double identities, conservatism and modernity, Islamophobia, and the relations between the modern and conservative Islam, in the context of the Muslim minority in the West.
Elad strives to grant a more complex view of Islam's actual issues, challenge the fixed conception in Israel, and expose the readers to those essential insights that usually do not receive media exposure.
eladbd608@gmail.com
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Dr. Levin completed his doctorate at the School of History at Tel-Aviv University. He can best be described as a historian specializing in the late 19th and 20th century history of Eurasia (the southern parts of the Russian Empire, USSR – the Muslim republics). Within this field, he had explored the history of various minority groups and their interactions vis-a-vis the Russian/ Soviet as Post-Soviet State. For this research he won an Israeli Science Foundation (ISF) grant for a first book publication.
For my post doctorate, Dr. Levin conducted research on Jewish and non-Jewish refugee populations in Soviet Central Asia during World War II, uncovering a less-studied chapter of the Holocaust and World War II. This research culminated in 2013 with an international conference that he organized at the Hebrew University, bringing together 25 experts in this field from all over the globe. The conference was funded by a special grant from the Conference of Jewish Material Claims against Germany. Following this conference, he was invited to serve as a guest editor of a special edition of East European Jewish Affairs, which focused on Jewish deportees and evacuees during the Holocaust. In 2016, he organized another conference on the broader subject, with a focus on relations between the Soviet State and Jewish and non-Jewish populations of Soviet Central Asia during WWII.
Currently Dr. Levin is head of the Eurasian Research Group at the Harry S. Truman Institute of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Last Spring (2018) he had organized an international conference on “Russia in the Muslim Lands” bringing together many experts Historians as Political Scientists to discuss various aspects of the Imperial Russian, Soviet and current Russian presence in the Greater Muslim World
Over the past seven years, I have taught a wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses in Russian, Soviet and Eurasian history
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