Conference Circuit

A state of the Nation conference will be hosted by The Institute for National Security Studies, with a review of the period 1948-2008.

By GREER FAY CASHMAN
Conference Circuit 88 (photo credit: Courtesy)
Conference Circuit 88
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Sunday, June 22 THE THREE-Day meeting of the Jewish Agency Board of Governors will open at the Inbal Hotel Jerusalem at 8.30 a.m. On the first day there will be a special workshop on Branding Israel by Ido Aharoni, Director of Branding at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and on the last day there will be a special diplomatic briefing by Ephraim Halevi, former Head of the Mossad and former diplomat. Monday, June 23 A STATE of the Nation conference will be hosted by The Institute for National Security Studies, with a review of the period 1948-2008. The opening address will be delivered by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni who will speak on Israel's international status. Among the topics to be discussed throughout the day will be how to guarantee Israel's future existence. The conference will begin at 8.45 a.m. in the Bar Shira Auditorium on the Tel Aviv University campus. 60 YEARS after the battle of Kibbutz Be'er Yitzhak in the Negev near the Gaza Strip, members of the Religious Kibbutz Movement along with regional council heads and people from neighboring kibbutzim which are not religious will gather at Kibbutz Be'er Yitzhak to commemorate the battle in which soldiers of the Negev Brigade along with the brave fighters of Be'er Yitzhak pushed back battalions of Egyptian Forces during the War of Independence. Speakers will discuss the Negev, the War of Independence and the ongoing battle to live in peace and dignity. They also discuss the south as it is today and prospects for the future. The conference begins at 4 p.m. Tuesday, June 24 THE LEONARD Davis Institute will host a launch and discussion on the book of Prof. Raymond Cohen and Prof. Raymond Westbrook (Eds.), Isaiah's Vision of Peace in Biblical and Modern International Relations: Swords into Plowshares at 2.30 p.m. at Beit Maiersdorf on the Hebrew University's Mount Scopus campus. Prof. Cohen will be among the discussants. Wednesday June 25 THE INSTITUTE for National Security Studies (INSS) and the Israel-America Chamber of Commerce will host Daniel C. Kurtzer, former US ambassador to Israel, who will present his new book: Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace: American Leadership in the Middle East. The meeting will take place at the Institute for National Security Studies, 40 Haim Levanon St., Tel Aviv, from 16:00-18:00. Nasser Tahboub, Assistant Minister of Finance for Fiscal Affairs, Palestinian Authority will speak on "Implementing the First Year of the Palestinian Development Plan" in the Afternoons with IPCRI series at the Ambassador Hotel, Jerusalem at 3 p.m. Sunday, June 29 CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE is one of the key factors in whether or not there will be a sale and if a future sale will follow. In a competitive and crowded environment such as that of Israel, customer experience may sometimes be the only difference between enterprise or one product and another. This second conference on customer experience will teach participants how to find or create the right tools to attract customers. Registration desks for the conference will open at 8.30 a.m. at the Avenue in Airport City. For further details call 03-513-3650 Tuesday, July 1 CHANGE IS about to begin, according to organizers of the Negev Conference which this year is taking place in Dimona with the participation of Ya'acov Edery, the Minister for the Development of the Negev and the Galilee and for Immigrant Absorption; Shaul Mofaz, Minister for Transportation, Finance Minister Roni Bar-On and Communications Minister Ariel Attias. The final session will be addressed by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. For further details and registration call: 03-561-6600. Sunday, July 6 IN CELEBRATION of 60 years since the remarkable discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and in honor of the 60th anniversary of the State of Israel, the Israel Museum will hold a landmark three-day conference, with Israeli and overseas experts representing a variety of disciplines. The marathon of sessions over the course of the the conference will focus on Scroll-related themes including life in Qumran, biblical interpretation, scientific and cultural approaches to the Scrolls, language and Qumran literature, and the Scrolls as an educational tool. Noted scholars who will make presentations at the conference include Prof. George Brooke of the University of Manchester, Prof. James Charlesworth of Princeton Theological Seminary, Prof. John Collins of Yale University, Prof. Devorah Dimant of Haifa University, Prof. Lawrence Schiffman of New York University, Prof. Emanuel Tov of Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Prof. James VanderKam of University of Notre Dame. The 2008 conference follows up on the 1997 congress held in memory of Joy Gottesman Ungerleider, which commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Scrolls' discovery. The conference program seeks to update scholars on the most recent developments in scholarly opinion, as they seek to reconceptualize and recontextualize the Scrolls in today's world, to reflect on the last 10 years of progress and to articulate the hopes for the future of Qumran studies. Throughout the conference, participants will be asked to address such issues as: public knowledge of the Scrolls; dispelling myths and inaccuracies; incorporating the Scrolls into related academic research and in educational settings; and ways to present the subject of the Scrolls to schoolchildren, university students, and the public-at-large, making it interesting and relevant to contemporary audiences. The conference is organized by Dr. Adolfo Roitman, Head of the Shrine of the Book and Curator of the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Israel Museum, and sponsored by the Dorot Foundation and the Nussia and André Aisenstadt Foundation, in collaboration with the Orion Center, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Tuesday, July 8 INFRASTRUCTURE IN Israel - traffic strategies and budgetary limitations is the subject of a conference to be held at the Tel Aviv Hilton from 9 a.m. In addition to Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz, participants will include senior representatives of his ministry, the Finance Ministry, the Construction and Housing Ministry, Israeli Ports, Israel Railways, bus companies, banks, law firms, investment groups chambers of commerce, the Federation of Labor, public transport systems, etc. Sessions will deal with projects currently under construction, financing of future projects, ranking of future highways and other projects, privatization of the ports, and an evaluation of the privatization of public transport, to determine a decade later whether this was a success or failure. For further details and registration, call: 03-513-2471 or 03-512-1748.