Public Programs
“PREMIER” Dance Performance and Insights with Artists Elad Schechter and Rand Taha
“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 on April 6, 2021 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.
Robbins Collection Lecture in Jewish Law, Thought, and Identity
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.
Session 1 - Translating Hate in the Digital World
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.
Session 2 - Combating Online Hate: Law, Technology, and Society
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
Meet Me in the Market: Live Dance Performance from Jerusalem
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 and the Great Powers: The Case of China
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.
Diaspora-Israel Relations and the U.S. Presidential Elections: A Conversation with David Horovitz
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.
Israel Studies Colloquium Series
The Yemenite Children Affair: History, Access to Information, and Public Discourse
Roy Peled, Koret Visiting Professor in Israel Studies, UC Berkeley
Dov Levitan, Head of the Interdisciplinary Studies Program, Ashkelon College
Lessons Learned from Football Players and Epilepsy to Understand Brain Aging
Daniela Kaufer, Professor of Integrative Biology and Neuroscience and the Associate Dean of Biological Sciences at UC Berkeley
Israeli Women in Combat
Ayelet Harel-Shalev, Associate Professor, The Conflict Management and Resolution Program
Gil-li Vardi, Lecturer in History, Stanford University
Student Events
Black Power, Jewish Politics: Reinventing the Alliance in the 1960s
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
Marc Dollinger joins us to share the story of Black and Jewish relations from the Civil Rights Era alliances to Black Lives Matter today. Undermining widely held beliefs about Black-Jewish relations, Dollinger describes a new political consensus, based on identity politics, that drew Blacks and Jews together and altered the course of American liberalism and discusses the challenges that remain today.
Comparative Election Laws: Israel and the US
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).
Mizrahi Identity in the US
Summer Salon Series
Summer Salon Series 1: Renewable Energy Revolution under Conditions of Geopolitical Conflict: The Case of the Gaza Strip
Featuring Prof. Itay Fischendler in conversation with Miri-Lavi-Neeman
Summer Salon Series 2: What Can Theatre Teach Us in Times of Crisis and Transformation?
Featuring Prof. Sharon Aronson Lehavi in conversation with Dan Shifrin