Experts

served as the first director-general of Kadima and as one of its Knesset members from 2007 to 2013.

Jesse Ferris joined IDI in the fall of 2008 as Vice President of Strategy. His responsibilities include international programming and development. Jesse received his Ph.D. in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University in 2008. His research interests include democracy and foreign policy, international politics of the Middle East, and Israeli national security.

Professor Kremnitzer is a professor emeritus of the Faculty of law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, former dean of the Faculty of Law, and director of the Israeli Press Council.

Professor Yedidia Z. Stern is a full professor and former dean of the law faculty of Bar-Ilan University.

the former head of the migration research unit at Aharon Meir Center for Banking and Economic Policy at Bar-Ilan University and the former director of the economic research division at the Manufacturers Association of Israel (MAI).

 

A member of the Faculty of Law of the Peres Academic Center, Dr. Shuki Friedman served as secretary of the Locker Committee for Examining the Defense Budget, chairman of the government committee on the sanctions against Iran, and head of the international and foreign law department for the legal division of the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office.

A board member of the National Press Council and lecturer at the Federmann School of Public Policy and Government at the Hebrew University. She is a former head of the research department at the Israeli Second Authority for Television and Radio, a former research fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and a visiting scholar at Harvard’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies.

Admiral (Res.) Ami Ayalon is a former director of the Shin Bet, commander of the Israeli Navy, government minister and member of Knesset.

Eli Bahar holds an MA in public administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and teaches courses in the Law Department of Tel Aviv University. He served as the legal advisor to the Shin Bet from 2006 to 2011.

 

Professor Hanoch Dagan has published more than 70 articles and six books on private law and legal theory, some of which have been published by the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

A faculty member of the Political Science Department at the Open University of Israel, Professor Tamar Hermann has co-edited the monthly Peace Index (with Professor Ephraim Ya’ar) since 1994, and has edited the annual Israeli Democracy Index since 2010.

Nasreen Hadad Haj-Yahya holds an MA in education and social geography and is a doctoral candidate in the History Department at Tel Aviv University. The topic of her doctoral dissertation is, “The contemporary impact of social space barriers on the inaction and future orientation of young Arabs aged 18–22.”

Professor Amichai Cohen is a member of the Faculty of Law at Ono Academic College. He earned his LL.B. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and his LL.M. and LL.D. from Yale Law School at Yale University.

Dean of the Faculty of Law at Bar-Ilan University, is considered a leading scholar of family law and responsible for shaping civil law theory in that field.

Co-author of the Master Plan for Ultra-Orthodox Employment. He was director of implementation of the Gabison-Meidan Covenant Project at the Avi Chai Foundation and content manager of the Committee on Sharing the Security Burden in the Eighteenth Knesset.

 

Professor Margalit headed a large, experimental cross-national study of the investment decisions of multinational firms, a project that he developed and carried out in collaboration with the World Bank and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization.

Dr. Amir Fuchs holds a doctorate from the Faculty of Law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and is a lecturer in the Politics and Communication Department at the School of Government and Social Sciences at Hadassah Academic College.

Professor Yuval Feldman is a full professor on the Faculty of Law at Bar-Ilan University and a former fellow of Institutional Corruption Lab at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University.

Professor Rahat is a faculty member of the Political Sciences Department at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and an International Fellow at the Center for the Study of Democracy at the University of California, Irvine.

A researcher, journalist, author, and publicist, Yair Sheleg has been an astute observer of the religious-Zionist world for many years.

Dr. Hadar Arditi-Babchuk has a doctorate from the Interdisciplinary Program in Brain Sciences at Bar-Ilan University and a master's degree in Epidemiology from Tel-Aviv University.

Adv. Rachel Aridor Hershkovitz is a researcher in the Israel Democracy Institute’s Media Reform program and a research fellow at the Haifa Center for Law and Technology at the University of Haifa.

An associate professor and head of the Conflict Resolution and Conflict Management program at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. She received her Ph.D. in 2007 from the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences at Vrije Universiteit Brussels.

 

An expert on ultra-Orthodox Judaism and its religious formation. The author of the book The Chazon Ish, Brown did his post-doctoral work at Harvard University.

Dr. Isaac Hershkowitz, who engages in thorough analyses of rabbinic literature in general and halakhic literature in particular, integrates advanced methods of Jewish studies and sociology in his work.

Dr. Raphael Ventura is the director of the data archive of the Guttman Center for Public Opinion and Policy Research at the Israel Democracy Institute.

Researcher, Human Rights and Judaism Program

Dr. Eliezer Hadad is the coordinator of the MA program in Biblical Studies at Herzog College and a lecturer in Jewish philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the author of The Relationship between Nature and the Torah in Maimonides’ Writings, as well as the policy papers Minorities in the Jewish State and The Status of Women in the Rabbinical Courts.

Areas of expertise

The principle of equality in the Jewish sources; Maimonidean philosophy; Jewish philosophy.

Brig. Gen. (res) Moni Chorev served in the IDF as a division commander, commander of the Givati Brigade and commander of the IDF's Officers' Training School.

Ron Hermon is studying for his BA in psychology and law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Dr. Moran Yarchi received her Ph.D. in 2012 from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is a senior lecturer at the Sammy Ofer School of Communications, Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) in Herzliya.

A social geographer and the head of the Interdisciplinary Studies Department, and a senior lecturer in the Geography and Environmental Studies Department at Oranim Academic College of Education.

A senior lecturer in the Sociology and Anthropology Department at Bar-Ilan University, an MA advisor in the department, and acting head of the organizational consulting project.

 

Dr. Guy Lurie is a lawyer and received his PhD in History from Georgetown University (2013). Dr. Lurie is a former coordinator of the Shamgar Commission for the Formulation of Rules of Ethics for Members of the Government, and served as a post-doctoral fellow on the Faculty of Law at the University of Haifa.

Marina Motsenok is a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She received her BA in sociology and education and her MA in organizational sociology from the Hebrew University.

Adv. Lina Saba-Habesch holds an LL.M. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and is a doctoral candidate in the joint interdisciplinary program of the Faculty of Law at the Hebrew University and the Free University of Berlin. The topic of her doctoral dissertation is the "Torture of security suspects."

 

A senior lecturer on the Faculty of Law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the director of the Matz Institute for Jewish Law. After completing his doctorate at the Hebrew University, he was hosted as a post-doctoral fellow by the University of Toronto

Dr. Chen Friedberg has co-written many papers published by the Israel Democracy Institute.

IDI Researcher Dr. Reuven (Ruvi) Ziegler explores questions of immigration, asylum, and citizenship as part of IDI's Democratic Principles project. He is a Lecturer in Law at the University of Reading.

Dr. Tehila Kalagy focuses on projects that combine research and social action. She is a lecturer in the Conflict Management and Resolution Program at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and the former director of the Haredi College in Jerusalem.

Avinoam Rosenak is a senior lecturer at the department of Jewish Thought
at Hebrew University's Melton Centre for Jewish Education in Jerusalem. He is the former chair of the Jewish Thought department. He completed his B.A. (1991), M.A. (1993) and Ph.D. (1997) at the Hebrew University, while also studying at the Beit Midrash of the Shalom Hartman Institute (1991-1994). He completed his post-doctoral studies at Harvard University (2002). His field of research is Modern Jewish Philosophy and the Philosophy of the Halakhah (Jewish Law).

 

Professor Ilana Ritov of the School of Education at Hebrew University of Jerusalem is a consultant for IDI's Proportionality in Public Policy Project. She serves as a resource for the project's research team on issues of decision making and cognitive biases.

Dr. Matti Steinberg is a former advisor to directors of the Shin Bet. He taught Middle Eastern studies at Princeton University and at Heidelberg University, and later joined the Middle Eastern Studies Faculty at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the author of the book Facing Their Fate: Palestinian National Consciousness 1967–2007.

 

A Post-doctoral candidate in the Faculty of Law at Tel-Aviv University, Idit Shafran Gittleman holds an MA in philosophy from the University of Haifa.