Virtual Program Archive

Tuesday, April 26

Sharon Fridman, Israeli Choreographer and Director, Artist-in-Residence, Francisco Rabal Theater, Pinto Town Hall (Madrid, Spain)

Yasmeen Godder, Israeli Choreographer

Yael Nativ, Professor of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies, UC Berkeley

Dr. Einav Katan Schmid, Head of the School of Dance, Kibbutzim College of Education, Technology and Arts

SanSan Kwan, Professor of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies, UC Berkeley

How can choreography practice and inspire empathy and care? How is performance conducted with socially engaged values? In what ways do choreographers think about dance as a participatory human event approaching questions of social inclusion and exclusion? Can dance be perceived as an ethical activity, and how can it inform and foster intercultural encounters? This talk joins a larger cultural discussion exploring the role of empathy in dance while offering a perspective from the Israeli dance scene.

Tuesday, March 1

Elisheva Rosman-Stollman, Associate Professor of Political Science, Bar-Ilan University

Ronit Stahl, Associate Professor of History, UC Berkeley

Elisheva Rosman-Stollman joins in conversation with Ronit Stahl to discuss her work on religion and gender in the Israeli military, including questions of gender equality, religious accommodation, and the legitimation of religious female soldiers.

Tuesday, February 22

Annual Robbins Collection Lecture in Jewish Law, Thought, and Identity: Reimagining Diversity and Jewish Belonging: A Journey Through Genesis

Featuring

Amanda Beckenstein Mbuvi, Vice President for Academic Affairs, Reconstructionist Rabbinical College

In the U.S. American context, the dominant conception of Jewish identity does not fully reckon with the diversity that exists within the Jewish people. This talk explores that gap in conversation with the book of Genesis, highlighting the book’s potential to inform a journey to reimagining Jewish belonging in more inclusive ways.

Wednesday, February 16

Featuring

Diana Hess: Karen A. Falk Distinguished Chair of Education and Dean of the School of Education, University of Wisconsin-

Madison Chris Edley: the Honorable William H. Orrick, Jr., Distinguished Professor of Law, Former Dean of Berkeley Law, and Interim Dean of the Graduate School of Education, UC Berkeley

Hanan Alexander: Professor of Philosophy of Education, Immediate Past Dean of the Faculty of Education, University of Haifa, and Koret Visiting Professor of Israel Studies, UC Berkeley

Masua Sagiv: Koret Visiting Assistant Professor of Jewish and Israel Studies, UC Berkeley, Scholar in Residence, Shalom Hartman Institute, and Menomadin Center, Bar-Ilan University Faculty of Law

Adar Cohen: Academic Director of the Teacher Education Program, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Visiting Scholar, UC Davis

Ayman Agbaria: Sr. Lecturer in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy, University of Haifa, and faculty member in the Mandel School for Educational Leadership, Jerusalem

Tuesday, February 1

Kofi Tirosh, Associate Professor, Tel Aviv University, Buchmann Faculty of Law; former Dean of Sapir Academic College School of Law

Michael Helfand, Vice Dean for Faculty and Research, Professor of Law, Pepperdine University School of Law

Yofi Tirosh will join in conversation with Michael Helfand to discuss her work on sex segregation in Israeli society, including in academia, and the appropriate balance between religious accommodation and sex equality.

Thursday, November 18

Batya Ungar-Sargon, Deputy Opinion Editor of Newsweek

Ethan Katz, Professor of History, UC Berkeley

Conversation between Batya Ungar-Sargon and Professor Ethan Katz as they dive into complex and controversial issues — raised by Ungar-Sargon’s new book — about American journalism and its role in shaping race, class, religion, and culture in America. Seeking to hold both the Left and the Right accountable, Batya takes issue with the “woke” media and the ways it has led the American public astray.

Tuesday, November 16

Anna Borshchevskaya, Senior Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy

Professor Ron Hassner, the Helen Diller Family Chair in Israel Studies at UC Berkeley

Anna Bourshchevskaya joins Professor Hassner for a conversation exploring Israel’s relationship with Russia and what this might mean for geopolitics as we know it. This is the second in a series of talks examining Israel’s relationships with global powers.

Thursday, November 4

Amal Jamal, Professor of Political Science, Head of Walter Lebach Institute for the Study of Jewish-Arab Coexistence, Tel Aviv University

Daniel Zoughbie, Associate Project Scientist, Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley

Professor Jamal in conversation with Professor Zoughbie about his new book Reconstructing the Civic: Palestinian Civil Activism in Israel (SUNY Press, 2020). This is the second session in a series on Civil Society and Plurality in Israel.

Thursday, October 14

Moderator: Janine Zacharia, Carlos Kelly McClatchy Lecturer, Stanford University

Panel Participants:

Rami Zeedan, Assistant Professor, University of Kansas

Tal Schneider, Diplomatic & Political correspondent, Globes Newspaper and Times of Israel

Noah Efron, Chair, Program on Science, Technology, and Society, Bar-Ilan University; Host, The Promised Podcast, TLV1

This virtual panel explores Israel’s new governing coalition and the insights it provides on Israeli society. Janine Zacharia moderates a lively discussion — with Rami Zeedan, Tal Schneider, and Noah Efron — about the current government and its very broad coalition, the challenges and opportunities this arrangement has created, some reflections to date on mistakes and successes, and a significant engagement with the shifts in Israeli society that are reflected through this new governing coalition. 

Tuesday, October 5, 2021

Michael Karayanni, (Bruce W. Wayne Chair in International Law, Hebrew University Faculty of Law) in conversation with Masua Sagiv (Koret Visiting Professor, UC Berkeley; Shalom Hartman Institute; Bar-Ilan University Faculty of Law) about his new book A Multicultural Entrapment: Religion & State among the Palestinian-Arabs in Israel (Cambridge University Press, 2020).

Tuesday, April 6, 2021

“Premier” is a solo dance choreographed by Elad Schechter, founder and principal choreographer of CATAMON, for Rand Zeid Taha, a Jerusalem born Palestinian dancer. This inter-religious and intercultural dialogue through dance negotiates the sociopolitical tensions and rifts evoked by east/west Jerusalem through the expressive forms of dance and movement.

This is a recording of a livestreamed presentation of the Helen Diller Institute for Jewlish Law and Israel Studies in partnership with c.a.t.a.m.o.n. Dance Group in Jerusalem, the Murray Galinson San Diego Israel Inititative, The Peleh Fund, the Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice and the UCLA Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies. Artists’ conversation facilitated by Dr. Melissa Melpignano.

Wednesday, April 

Wednesday, March 10, 2021

Kenneth A. Bamberger, The Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation Professor of Law, UC Berkeley; Faculty co-Director, the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology (BCLT) and the Helen Diller Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies.
Ariel Evan Mayse, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Stanford University; Senior Fellow, Berkeley Program on Jewish Law, Thought and Identity; Rabbi-in-Residence, Atiq: Jewish Maker Institute.

Professors Bamberger and Mayse make the counterintuitive argument that Jewish law’s millennia-old approach to surveillance, communication, and information collection, sharing, and use, offer missing frameworks for the struggle to protect privacy in an age of big data.

Wednesday, February 4, 2021

This symposium will explore the phenomenon of cyber-hate. What are the key issues and manifestations? What are the appropriate responses to online hate? What are the frameworks available — legal, social, technological — and possible constraints to responding? How do we evaluate the success of various solutions?

CHRISTOPHER WOLF (author of Viral Hate) will keynote this session. Panelists include Vlad Khaykin, Carrie Goldberg, and Stephanie Ortiz.

Wednesday, March 4, 2021

Keynote and moderator: Prof. Yuval Shany (former Dean at Hebrew University, and former Chair of the United Nations Human Rights Committee)

Panel Discussion:
Imran Ahmed, CEO, Center for Countering Digital Hate
Mary Anne Franks, Professor of Law and Dean’s Distinguished Scholar, University of Miami School of Law
David Kaye, UC Irvine School of Law, former United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression

The Hellen Diller Institute travelled (virtually) to Jerusalem for an exclusive show, as part c.a.t.a.m.o.n. Dance Group’s ‘From Jaffa to Agripas’ Festival. This performance features Ori Lenkinski as Jackie Kennedy walking through the Mahane Yehuda market. 

Israel Institute Visiting Professor Ehud Eiran (Haifa University) joins Professor Ron Hassner, the Helen Diller Family Chair in Israel Studies, for a conversation exploring Israel’s new alliance with China and what this might mean for geopolitics as we know it. 

David Horovitz joins us as the Morton and Amy Friedkin Scholar-in-Residence. In conversation with Sue Fishkoff, he will reflect on the potential ramifications of the U.S. presidential elections on diaspora-Israel relations and U.S.-Israel bilateral relations. He will also address other hot topics in the media as well as the role of the Times of Israel, as an English language newspaper, in covering the news in Israel.

Roy Peled, Koret Visiting Professor in Israel Studies, UC Berkeley
Dov Levitan, Head of the Interdisciplinary Studies Program, Ashkelon College

Daniela Kaufer, Professor of Integrative Biology and Neuroscience and the Associate Dean of Biological Sciences at UC Berkeley

Ayelet Harel-Shalev, Associate Professor, The Conflict Management and Resolution Program
Gil-li Vardi, Lecturer in History, Stanford University

Speaker: Marc Dollinger, Jewish Studies Professor, SFSU; Author, Black Power, Jewish Politics: Reinventing  the Alliance in the 1960s and Quest for Inclusion: Jews and Liberalism in Modern America

Speakers: Roy Peled, Koret Visiting Professor in Israel Studies
Jay Footlik, Special Assistant to President Clinton in the White House

A comparative view on Israeli and US election law as we conclude a year in which Israel had not one, but 3 election cycles, and the US approaches it’s Nov. 3 presidential elections. The event will compare the legal context in each country, and provide an analysis of the benefits and drawbacks of each case. Some topics that will be touched upon include procedural fairness, inclusion (universal suffrage) and equality (in funding and other means between the contestants).

Featuring Prof. Itay Fischendler in conversation with Miri-Lavi-Neeman

Featuring Prof. Sharon Aronson Lehavi in conversation with Dan Shifrin