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Israel Symposium 2022

Sunday, November 20th 9:00 AM-12:00 PM Beth El Congregation 8101 Park Heights Ave, Pikesville, MD 21208 Cost: $10 per person

To watch the live stream on the day of the event, click here.

The Baltimore Zionist District, in collaboration with Beth El Congregation present:

“Israel’s 5th Elections in 3 Years: What the Results Mean for Israel, the Region and the U.S.”

We are proud to bring the Baltimore Jewish community together to promote a morning of learning and conversation about the most recent Israeli elections, their results and impact. The forum will feature outstanding experts in an open and honest panel discussion. Breakfast will be included. Following, please find a list of our featured speakers with brief bios.

Dr. Mitchell Bard

Dr. Mitchell Bard is the Executive Director of the nonprofit American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise (AICE) and a foreign policy analyst who frequently lectures on U.S.-Middle East policy. Dr. Bard is also the director of the Jewish Virtual Library, the world's most comprehensive online encyclopedia of Jewish history and culture. His work has been published in academic journals, magazines, and major newspapers. Dr. Bard holds a Ph.D. in political science from UCLA and a master's degree in public policy from Berkeley.

Dr. Robert O. Freedman

Dr. Robert O. Freedman is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania with a B.A. degree in Diplomatic History and from Columbia University with M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in International Relations. He has been an Assistant Professor of Russian History at the United States Military Academy, Associate Professor of Political Science and Russian at Marquette University, and Professor of Political Science at the Baltimore Hebrew University, including a tenure as President of the institution. Currently, he is a Visiting Professor at Johns Hopkins University.

Shoshana Bryen

Shoshana Bryen is Senior Director of the Jewish Policy Center, and a leading specialist in U.S. defense policy and Middle East affairs. She is the former Executive Director and Senior Director for Security Policy at the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, and the author of the widely republished JINSA Reports. She has worked with the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College and the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, and lectured at the National Defense University in Washington. Mrs. Bryen coordinated programs in the Middle East for military professionals that allowed more than 450 American military officers to engage in professional discussions of issues that both unite and divide the United States, Israel and Jordan. She also created a program to take the cadets and midshipmen of America’s service academies to Israel for a three-week work/study program that has permitted hundreds of future officers to have a positive, in-depth experience in Israel. She has also taken Turkish and Israeli military officers to speak at the service academies and has lectured in the academies as well.

Presenting Sponsors:

Israel Symposium 2021

When: Sunday, October 10th Time: 9:00 AM-12:00 PM Where: Ner Tamid Synagogue 6214 Pimlico Road, Baltimore, MD 21209 Cost: $10

To watch the stream live on the day of the event, click here.

The Baltimore Zionist District and Ner Tamid present “Israel in the Biden and Bennett Era”. We are proud to bring the Baltimore Jewish community together to promote a morning of learning and conversation about the current relationship between Israel and the US. The forum will feature outstanding experts in an open and honest panel discussion. Breakfast will be included. Following, please find a list of our featured speakers with brief bios.

Dr. Jonathan Schanzer

Dr. Jonathan Schanzer is a Senior Vice President for Research at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD). Previously, he worked as a terrorism finance analyst at the US Department of the Treasury. He served in several positions at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a respected think-tank. Jonathan has written hundreds of articles on the Middle East, as well as more than a dozen monographs and chapters for edited volumes. He authored three important books: State of Failure: Yasser Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas and the Unmaking of the Palestinian State (2013), Hamas vs. Fatah: The Struggle for Palestine (2008), and Al Qaeda’s Armies: Middle East Affiliate Groups and the Next Generation of Terror (2004). Jonathan often testifies before Congress and publishes widely in the American and international media. He appears as an expert on CNN, Fox News, Al-Arabiya and Al-Jazeera.

Michael Doran

Michael Doran is a Senior Fellow at Hudson Institute. During the George W. Bush presidency, he served in three key positions: Senior Director of Middle East Security Issues in the National Security Council; Senior Advisor in the State Department; and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Pentagon. He received a B.A. from Stanford University and an M.A. and a Ph. D in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University. Before coming to Hudson, Doran served as Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. He has held teaching positions at New York University, Princeton University, and at the University of Central Florida. His latest book, Ike’s Gamble, was published in 2016. He appears frequently on television and has published extensively in “Foreign Affairs”, “The American Interest”, “Contemporary”, “Mosaic”, “The Wall Street Journal”, “The Washington Post”, and “The New York Times”.

Minister Tammy Ben-Haim

Minister Tammy Ben-Haim has served as Minister for Public Diplomacy at the Embassy of Israel in Washington DC since August 2018. As a career diplomat, Tammy has spent more than 15 years in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with over 20 years in civil service. During her time at the Ministry in Jerusalem, Tammy worked on both the Central and South Asia desks. In prior years, she served as Deputy Chief of Mission in Athens, Greece and as Counselor for Internal Politics in New Delhi, India. Before joining the Foreign Ministry, Tammy worked at the Ministry of Environmental Protection, the Ministry of Finance, and on the Finance Committee of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. She also worked as an adviser to several lawmakers in the Knesset. In the Israeli armed forces, Tammy served as an Operations Officer for the Air Force and concluded her service with a rank of Lieutenant. Tammy has a Masters’ Degree in International Relations from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Ben Samuels

Ben Samuels, based in Washington, D.C., is a U.S correspondent for Israel's “Haaretz” newspaper. He covers all things related to the U.S. government and Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World.

Presenting Sponsors:

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