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Farewell and welcome
  • Mr. Ivar Samrén succeeded the late Oscar Van Leer in 1986 as chairman of the Governing Council of the Van Leer Group Foundation. He was the first non-family member to hold that position from which he will now retire after 22 years. In this capacity, he has served for many years as member and chair of the Board of Trustees of The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute.
  • Wilfred Griekspoor became chair of the Van Leer Group Foundation on June 12, 2008, succeeding Ivar Samrén. Currently, Wilfred Griekspoor is director emeritus at McKinsey & Company and serves on the boards of PharmAccess Foundation in Amsterdam and the Infectious Disease Institute of Makarere University in Kampala, Uganda.
The Van Leer Group Foundation is a philanthropic holding which supports the activities of the Bernard Van Leer Foundation, The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute and the Jerusalem Film Centre. The Israeli venture capital company Docor International Management is fully owned by the Van Leer Group Foundation.


VLJI congratulates its researchers on recent honors

  • Prof. Itzhak Galnoor has been awarded the Prize of the Israeli Association for Political Science for the best textbook, Public Administration in Israel: Development, Structure, Functions and Reforms.

  • Dr. Tal Kohavi has been awarded the Bahat Prize by Haifa University for the best original academic research manuscript in Hebrew for 2008 titled Between Dance and Anthropology. The book will be published by Haifa University Press within a year.
New initiatives
  • Polonsky Postdoctoral Fellowships
    The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute is proud to announce the initiation of a postdoctoral program, generously funded by the Polonsky Foundation. Two fellowships will be awarded for any field of the Humanities or Social Sciences, for a period of up to five years, beginning October 1, 2008. The Fellowships offer an annual stipend of $40,000, with yearly renewal contingent upon demonstrated progress in their research conducted at the Institute. As Prof. Gabriel Motzkin, Director of VLJI, has noted, "This program will fulfill the original VLJI mission by bringing young scholars at the cutting edge of their disciplines to enlighten the Institute's researchers while profiting from the Institute's unique context."
    The fellows named for this honor will be announced later this month.
  • Public call for project proposals
    This year, for the first time, VLJI posted an announcement on its website and in the Israeli press that project proposals for the coming year would be accepted by a public, online application process. Over 200 proposals were submitted and are currently under review for 2009.
Recent VLJI Publications
  • The Center for Social Justice and Democracy In Memory of Y. Chazan at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute From Welfare to Market Society: Economic Distress in the Kibbutz
    Editors: Michal Palgi and Dani Zamir (Hebrew)
  • Memory Games: Concepts of Time and Memory in Jewish Culture
    Editor: Yotam Benziman. With the Hakibbutz Hameuchad Publishing House (Hebrew)
  • Studies on Jewish People, Identity and Nationality
    Editors: Naftali Rothenberg and Eliezer Schweid. With the Hakibbutz Hameuchad Publishing House (Hebrew)
  • Theory and Criticism
    No. 31, Winter 2007 / 40to67     (Hebrew)
  • Failure of the Middle East Peace Process? A Comparative Analysis of Peace Implementation in Israel/Palestine, Northern Ireland and South Africa, Guy Ben-Porat, ed., 2008
    296 pages, in conjunction with Palgrave Macmillan.
Recent media coverage:
Following the tragic terrorist attack at the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva in March 2008, Prof. Rabbi Naftali Rothenberg published an "Appropriate response to killings rests in Torah" in The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles. It is available with the permission of The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles at: http://www.jewishjournal.com/ articles/item/appropriate_response _to_killings_rests_in_torah_20080328/

In future issues of the newsletter, we will include links to stories in the Hebrew press.

The newsletter is published every four months.

Harriet Gimpel, editor

Distinguished Visiting Scholar Program Renewed in March:
A Response to the 2006 Regensburg Speech by Pope Benedict XVI


Prof. David Nirenberg
The provocative remarks regarding Islam in the 2006 Regensburg speech by Pope Benedict XVI were the focus of a presentation made to VLJI fellows by Prof. David Nirenberg, Professor of Medieval History and Social Thought from the University of Chicago. After classifying that speech as reflecting a dialectical view of the history of Christianity, Islam and Judaism, Nirenberg cited the roots of that view in Christian theology and Hegelian philosophy.

Subsequent to his historical and philosophical analysis, Prof. Nirenberg engaged VLJI fellows in an analysis of the implications of the Regensburg speech for the future of relations between Europe, Islam and Judaism. Likewise, Nirenberg's comments generated discussion on the presumed intentions of the speech.


Workshop at VLJI with Distinguished Visiting Scholar, Prof. David Nirenberg
This presentation was the first in the framework of the VLJI visiting scholars program, renewed this year by Prof. Gabriel Motzkin, Director of VLJI. Prof. Nirenberg was the guest of the Institute March 10-11, 2008. He made himself available to meet with VLJI fellows and scholars interested in discussing their research and gaining his input. In addition to his presentation, he conducted a seminar for VLJI researchers on the role of Islam and Judaism in Christian Europe.



Post-secularism: Part One


Dr. Yochi Fischer
Addressing the subject of Processes of Secularization and Religious Resurgence: Attempting a Comparative Jewish-Christian Perspective, Dr. Yochi Fischer suggested an Israeli viewpoint whereby nationalist expressions have become inseparable from religious texts and subtexts. Secularization has become a phenomenon, or a process, relative to religion. This lecture was delivered in May as part of the 2008 Van Leer Seminar, entitled Post-secularism: Part One.

Each year, the Van Leer Seminar, for VLJI researchers and fellows, provides a broad platform for exchange about the Institute's ongoing activities, with the goal of advancing universal knowledge about the Israeli experience. VLJI fellows deliver a presentation for each session and a guest responds.

This year, the Seminar attempts not only to present the concept of post-secularism, but is engaged in an effort to establish its meaning for different political, cultural and social contexts. It also directs some attention to the meaning of the term for modern Jewish/Zionist culture and politics. VLJI fellow, Prof. Christoph Schmidt explains that "post-secular" defines a new relation between secular culture and religion: "It creates a new interaction between secular and religious discourse, whereby 'post-secularity' defines a new area in terms of cultural politics and political theology and is definitely influenced by the appearance of political Islam. But against the simplistic picture of the clash between two global cultures - secular west and religious east - a post-secular perspective reveals the internal dialectics of both, namely the presence of religion and even fundamentalist religion in the secular western discourse, and the secular options of Islamic culture."



Ideology after Poststructuralism: The Van Leer Workshop for Young Researchers


Dr. Izak Saporta (left), Prof. Gad Algazi, March 2008 Workshop
This year, the March seminar focused on the examination of "Work and Ideology," and the relations between them. Questions were raised, for example, by Prof. Gad Algazi on issues related to service vocations and the historical development of attitudes towards them in western society.

The Workshop consists of 50 graduate students and professors whose research is based on, and committed to, contemporary critical theory. The workshop commenced in the summer of 2005 with a three-day seminar in Postcolonial studies. It was subsequently decided to institutionalize the Workshop and conduct two seminars during the academic year in addition to a summer workshop every year.


Prof. Ann L. Stoler, May 2008
The Spring workshop in May featured a lecture by Prof. Ann L. Stoler of the New School for Social Research, a VLJI visiting scholar. In an autobiographical comment addressing the young scholars, she noted that at the outset of her academic career in the 1960s, intellectual pursuit was unequivocally inseparable from political action.

The analytical applicability of ideology today is the ultimate question that young researchers will tackle this summer at Van Leer. As a means of addressing that question, the Van Leer Workshop for Young Researchers, Summer 2008, will begin with the study of ideology as a part of the Marxist tradition. The Workshop will then proceed to the study of texts and theorists who challenge and diverge from the Marxist tradition.



Symposium on the Sources of Israeli Mythology: Neither Canaanites, Nor Crusaders by Prof. David Ohana


Prof. David Ohana
There is evidence of the influence of a continuum from Nietzsche's Ecco Homo through to post-Zionist thinkers upon the developing Israeli identity. These developments incur the ideologies of secular, political visions, as well as those of the right-wing, religious, political camp according to the analysis offered by Prof. David Ohana in his new book, Neither Canaanites, Nor Crusaders (Keter Press). In comparing Zionist manifestations to the Crusaders and the regional response in terms of fears of Crusades alongside a position of Canaanite defiance, Prof. Ohana exposes the vast range of the sources of Israeli mythology. At a symposium held at VLJI on April 28, 2008, two panels of journalists, politicians and intellectuals, representing the left and right, addressed issues raised by the book.


Hanan Porat
The first session included Uri Avnery, Prof. Zeev Zahor and Hanan Porat followed by a session with Eli Amir, Haim Be'er and Yehoshua Sobol. Notably, Sobol warned the audience that "any historical analogy is a misunderstanding of history." In elaborating, he provided the example of the devaluation of the influence of the kibbutz movement following post-Zionist influences, while the role of the kibbutz in claiming gender equality must be accorded its proper place in the history of the developing state.


Eli Amir (left), Haim Be'er
Uri Avnery




Conference on Archaeology, Heritage and Negotiating Boundaries

Archaeological sites and artifacts may not be an obstacle to determining final boundaries between Israel and a Palestinian state, but they will have to be considered in the course of negotiations. Palestinian and Israeli teams of archaeologists have already been negotiating the issues under the mediation of archaeologists Ran Boytner of the University of California, Los Angeles and Lynn Swartz Dodd of the University of Southern California. On Tuesday, April 8, 2008, the teams presented their research and the current status of their negotiations to a group of some 70 Israeli archaeologists which convened at VLJI.

The research has not received government authorization, though the government is fully aware of the establishment of a database and subsequent efforts to negotiate an agreement. Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, or Mount Ibal, where Joshua built an altar to God are just two examples of sites likely to be in the territory of a future Palestinian state. The proposed agreement and international law will require major concessions to be made by Israel. The database includes over 1,500 sites and tens of thousands of artifacts.



The Documentation Project

Approximately 220 VLJI projects and over 1800 products resulting from them, from the late 1950s to the present, have been documented by Nadav Even Chorev of the VLJI staff in the past four years. It provides a tool for learning from the past and supporting decisions for the future. The project resulted in an organizational memory, outlining trends in VLJI activities and shedding light on its contribution as an organization positioned between Israeli academy and society. It is now accessible for the use of VLJI fellows and staff.



Recent Highlights of Ongoing Programs

The Economics and Society Program, The Roundtable Forum:


Pär Nuder, MP, Sweden; Former Minister for Finance
The Economics and Society Program held a "Roundtable" meeting in April with Pär Nuder, MP, and Sweden's Former Minister for Finance. The former minister suggested rebuilding reliable social bridges to conquer globalization. In response to his presentation, The Scandinavian Model - a role model to follow? VLJI fellow, Prof. Avia Spivak presented his joint research with Prof. Nathan Sussman on What Model for Israel? Likewise, VLJI fellow, Ms. Leah Achdut presented her data on Social Developments: Israel 2001-2006.


Pär Nuder, MP, Sweden; Former Minister for Finance with "Roundtable" participants
Another "Roundtable" meeting was held by the Economics and Society Program upon the request of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI). The legal team at ACRI sought input from the "Roundtable" on economic perspectives for the penultimate draft of its proposed protected housing legislation.


Prof. Avia Spivak (left), Shahar Ben Natan,
ACRI representative in background,
Prof. Moshe Justman, Leah Achdut


Roundtable on Israelis, Palestinians and Mediterranean Neighbors:


Mr. Ashraf Ajrami (left) and Prof. Gabriel Motzkin
This new forum under the direction of Dr. Anat Lapidot-Firilla and coordinated by Harriet Gimpel invites leading Palestinian intellectual and political figures to address a group of approximately 20 influential Israelis including businesspeople, legislators, leading representatives of the public and private sectors and academicians and scholars. Guests making presentations engage Israelis in discussion on pressing issues of socio-political, economic and cultural concern to the population of the Palestinian Authority. In February, Mr. Ashraf Ajrami, Minister of Prisoner Affairs, Youth and Sport in the Palestinian Authority addressed the roundtable.


Dr. Bashir Bashir (left), Dr. Anat Lapidot-Firilla, Mr. Jibril Rajub, Prof. Gabriel Motzkin
More recently, Mr. Jibril Rajub, made a presentation to this "Roundtable." Rajub, a member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council, spent 17 years in Israeli prisons until 1998 and subsequently directed the Preventive Security Service in the West Bank, and served as National Security Advisor to the Palestinian Authority.
In the framework of the "Roundtable," Israeli participants are able to convey a range of reactions representing different sectors of Israeli society away from the floodlights of the media.



Conference Honors Israel Prize Recipient, Prof. David Halivni


Full auditorium at VLJI conference honoring Prof. Halivni, May 25, 2008
The recipient of the prestigious Israel Prize in the field of Talmud, Prof. David Halivni was honored at a conference on May 25, 2008, organized by Dafna Schreiber, Director of Contemporary Jewish Culture and Identity at VLJI. Prof. Gabriel Motzkin and Prof. Rabbi Naftali Rothenberg opened the program, followed by the participation of another VLJI fellow, Dr. Aviad Hacohen. Retired Supreme Court Justice Heshin, also among the participants who contributed to the program, acknowledged the great value of the Talmud in its own right - separate from religion - and as a resource of contemporary, intellectual significance.