Neta Dror, Israel

Neta Dror is from Jerusalem, Israel. She graduated from the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design with a B.F.A in photography. During her studies she interned for the Israel Museum and the international photo agency AFP. After her graduation she managed the photo archive of the Tower of David Museum in Jerusalem. In the last year she has been working as a research assistant to Caroline Glick, the contributing editor of The Jerusalem Post, and as a research analyst and marketing director for CAMERA’s Israeli branch, “Presspectiva”. In the last two years she has been involved in Facebook marketing, helping to manage advertising campaigns for the biggest political figures and parties in Israel. Since her graduation, Neta has maintained an artistic career, exhibiting in Israel, Europe and in the United States.

 

Yaira Frankel-Schroeder, Israel

Yaira Frankel-Schroeder lives in Modi’in with her husband and two daughters. She has been working for the past eight years as a lawyer in the legal department of the Israeli Antitrust Authority, where she been responsible for banking, financial, intellectual property, communication, and food and retail sectors. At her last position she served as the Deputy Legal Adviser for Civil Affairs. Following her army service in the intelligence corps, Yaira completed a year of Middle-Eastern Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and then joined the honors program for joint studies in law and business. She holds LL.B. and M.B.A. degrees from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

 

Noam Friedman, United States

Noam Friedman was raised in northern New Jersey. After two years studying in Israel at Yeshivat Torat Shraga and Yeshivat Har Etzion, he earned a BA in psychology from Yeshiva University. He is currently a 3rd-year rabbinical student at Yeshiva University and is pursuing an M.A. in medieval Jewish history at its Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies. Noam was previously a Beit Midrash Fellow at SAR High School and currently serves as rabbinic intern at the Roslyn Synagogue in Roslyn Heights, NY. He has worked extensively with Jewish educational organizations, and has spent many summers on staff at Camp Moshava in Indian Orchard, PA.

 

Alan Goldsmith, United States

Alan Goldsmith is a national security professional with over six years of experience in foreign policy, Congress, policymaking, oversight, and communications. He served on the staff of the House Foreign Affairs Committee from 2007 to 2013, covering the Middle East and international organizations. Alan previously served as senior writer for Americans for a Strong Defense, a non-profit campaign opposing Chuck Hagel’s nomination for Secretary of Defense. Alan holds an M.A. in Strategic Security Studies from National Defense University and a B.A. in Political Science from Yeshiva University. He is a member of Young Professionals in Foreign Policy, and the Republican Jewish Coalition.

 

Simone Hartmann, Austria

Simone Dinah Hartmann was born and raised in Vienna, Austria and holds an M.Sc. in Information Technology and Politics from the Vienna University of Technology. She served in the Austrian student parliament where she became engaged against the Austrian far right and anti-Semitism. During the second intifada, she initiated pro-Israel events throughout German-speaking countries. In response to Iran’s nuclear program she started the European-wide coalition “Stop the Bomb,” and serves as its spokesperson and director in Austria. Hartmann has lectured and written extensively on matters related to the security of Israel, anti-Semitism and the Iranian threat in the German-speaking and international press, and is co-publisher of two anthologies on Iran and its European supporters.

 

Kate Havard, United States

Kate Havard works as a reporter and junior editor at The Weekly Standard. She writes on congressional and national politics for the magazine’s print edition and blog, and in 2012 covered the Ohio Senate Race and the Democratic National Convention. Ms. Havard also covered Maryland politics for the Washington Post. She graduated with a B.A. in Liberal Arts from St. John’s College, Maryland.

 

Oded Horezky, Israel

Oded Horezky was born and raised in Haifa, Israel. He received his B.A. and M.A. degrees in Philosophy and Jewish Thought from Haifa University, where he is currently a Ph.D student. His dissertation is on Maimonides’ and Gersonides’ views on conservatism and radicalism, autonomy and heteronomy, realism, instrumentalism, and critical epistemology. He has taught at Haifa University, the Gandel Institute for Adult Jewish Learning, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Yitzhak Rabin Pre-Military Academy, Hamidrasha Be-Oranim, and the Ein Prat Academy for Leadership.

 

Aharon Ariel Lavi, Israel

Aharon Ariel Lavi is the founder and director of the Nettiot Mission-Driven Communities Network, reengaging Haredi Ba’alei Teshuva (Returnees) into Israeli society. He is also founder of Garin Shuva, a Jewish eco-mission-driven-community in the North-Western Negev and he is co-founder and steering committee member of the National Council of Mission-Driven Communities. In addition to his institutional leadership, Lavi has edited and written work on Judaism, economics, social justice, and environmentalism. He is a Ph.D. student in Science, Technology, and Society at Bar-Ilan University, and holds a B.A. in Economics and Geography from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

 

Jonathan Leaf, United States

Jonathan Leaf is a playwright and journalist. He has received rave reviews for his plays in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Daily News, The New Criterion, BroadwayWorld.com, Show Business Weekly and many other publications. He has been identified and profiled by Time Out New York as one of the country’s most important new playwrights. As a journalist and critic, his work has appeared in The Weekly Standard, The American, The New York Sun, New York Post, New York Press, and National Review. A former New York City Public school teacher, he is a native of Trenton, New Jersey. He graduated from Yale with a B.A. in History.

 

Elad Popovich, Israel

Elad Popovich is the Executive Director of the Liberal Democracies Facing Asymmetric Conflicts project (LD-AC), at the University of Haifa. Previously, Elad served as the 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 an associate researcher at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT), and an instructor in the Israeli military. Elad is currently pursuing doctoral studies in international relations at the University of Haifa and 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 and international humanitarian law (in the scope of asymmetric conflicts), counter-terrorism and COIN, cyber threats, psychological warfare, psycho-strategy, Palestinian terrorist organizations, Hezbollah, and global jihad.

 

Yishai Schwartz, United States

Yishai Schwartz is currently a senior at Yale University majoring in philosophy and religious studies. A native of Riverdale, New York, Yishai studied for a year at the Yeshivat Har Etzion in Alon Shevut, Israel before entering Yale College. Yishai has worked as a research assistant for Yale Law School Professor Kate Stith, for whom he helped draft a study of Washington State’s sentencing policies and prepare a federal law case-book for publication. At Yale, Yishai is the Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Philosophy Review, and a staff columnist for the Yale Daily News. He has also been Speaker of the Yale Political Union, a Vice President of the Yale Friends of Israel, and a founding editor of Shibboleth, Yale’s undergraduate journal of Jewish thought.

 

Daniel Segal, Israel

Daniel Segal was born in America, but raised in Jerusalem from infancy. He was educated in the national religious educational stream, attended Har Etzion, and served in the I.D.F. as a paratrooper. Daniel has a B.A. in Hebrew Literature from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, rabbinic ordination from the office of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, and is presently pursuing an M. A. in Hebrew Literature from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Daniel is now the Community Rabbi of Alon, a diverse Israeli community committed to secular-religious coexistence. He is a founding member of the Ein Prat Academy of Leadership, an educational program for pre- and post-army participants, both secular and religious.

 

Jacob Spitz, United States

Yaakov Spitz, originally of Boro Park, New York, began his Talmudic studies at the community’s Satmar Yeshiva. After two years there, he attended the prestigious Yeshiva of Lucerne in Switzerland for two years. Thereafter, he spent several years at Yeshiva Yahel Yisrael in Haifa, which is under the spiritual leadership of his grandfather, Rabbi Eliezer Hager, Grand Rabbi of the Viznitz community in Haifa. Finally returning to New York in 2005, he was married and as is the tradition, continued to study Talmud and Codes in the Kolel Brizdovitz in Boro Park. Utilizing his familiarity with Israeli culture and Hebrew language, he also worked with transplanted Israeli youngsters in New York through a wide range of cultural and religious activities.

 

Elana Stein-Hain, United States

Elana Stein Hain has served as the Community Scholar at Lincoln Square Synagogue for the past five years, and she is a Ph.D. candidate in Religion at Columbia University. Elana is currently a faculty member at NYU Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service, where she teaches courses as part of a new minor on Religious Life and Leadership.

 

Erez Tadmor, Israel

Erez Tadmor the Political Editor of Mida, an Israeli web magazine, and the co-founder and former policy division head of the Im Tirtzu movement. Erez has a B.A. in political science and the multidisciplinary program from the Hebrew University, and is currently studying for an M.A. in political media at Bar Ilan University. He has held publicity and journalism posts at Maariv, Makor Rishon, and Yediot Yerushalayim.

 

Moshe Weinstock , Israel

Moshe Weinstock lives in Alon Shvut. He has studied in Eli Yeshiva, Beit Morasha and at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he received his Ph.D. in Jewish Philosophy. He has taught in Yeshivat Makor Chayim, Beit Morasha and Herzog College. Weinstock is the author of Uman, the Israeli Journey to the tomb of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, published by Yediot in 2011. Since 2010, Weinstock has served as the head of the curriculum division in the religious education branch of the Ministry of Education and as the director of the “Lev Lada’at” which works for religious education reform.

 

Tom Wilson, United Kingdom

Tom grew up in a rural community in Suffolk, England, before moving to London as an undergraduate student. Tom studied history at Royal Holloway where he went on to complete a Masters in modern history focused on Middle Eastern and Jewish subjects. Having spent several months at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for research purposes, Tom then returned to Britain to undertake a Ph.D. in Israeli Politics at the University College of London, where he also served as president of the university’s Jewish society. In addition to helping establish the U.K. chapter of StandwithUs, in recent years Tom has been involved with a number of political organizations, acting as a media spokesperson for several of them, including the Zionist Federation, the Institute for Middle Eastern Democracy and British friends of Efrat. As well as these involvements Tom also writes regularly and his work has appeared in Standpoint Magazine, The Commentator and The Jerusalem Post among others.

 

Jonathan Yudelman, Israel

Jonathan Yudelman grew up in Canada, where he studied philosophy and classics at McGill University before determining to move to Israel in 2001. Following service in the IDF, he attended the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, completing a B.A. in Jewish Thought and an M.A. in philosophy, and working as a teaching assistant. He received the Philosophy Department’s annual award for academic achievement, and the M.A. prize from the Jabotinsky Institute in Tel Aviv. He has a long-standing relationship with the Shalem Center in Jerusalem where he worked for a number of years, and has published work in Azure, the LA Review of Books, The Jerusalem Post, and others. His current intellectual interests include the 20th century intersection of the history of philosophy and the philosophy of history, Zionist thought, Jewish political theology, and understanding the amorphous crisis of the West.