Conference Circuit

Former presidential candidate Likud MK Reuven Rivlin will speak in English on Israel's Political Crisis.

By GREER FAY CASHMAN
Sunday, June 29 CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE is one of the key factors in whether there will be a sale. In a competitive and crowded environment such as in 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 more details: (03) 513-3650. Monday, June 30 THE DEPARTMENT of Politics and Government at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev is hosting a department seminar with Prof. Robert Johnson of Brooklyn College, who will lead a discussion on The Changing Nature of Presidential Campaigning from Lyndon Johnson to Barack Obama. The seminar, in English, will begin at noon in the Helen Diller Family Building (Building 74), room 301, on the BGU campus. Johnson is is a professor of history at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center, where he teaches classes in 20th century US political, constitutional and diplomatic history. A specialist in the history of Congress, Johnson has authored many books and papers. Tuesday, July 1 THE 15TH annual conference of the Israel Society for Quality Health Care will be addressed by Prof. Steven Simon of Harvard Medical School and Prof. Charles Homer, president of the National Institute for Children's Health Care Quality. Simon will talk about the contribution of information systems toward the improvement of treatment in community health care systems; Homer will talk about improving treatment in pediatric health care. The conference will take place at the Tel Aviv Hilton. CHANGE IS about to begin, according to organizers of the Negev Conference, which this year is taking place in Dimona with the participation of Immigrant Absorption Minister Ya'acov Edri, Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz, Finance Minister Ronnie Bar-On and Communications Minister Ariel Attias. The final session will be addressed by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. For more details and registration: (03) 561-6600. Wednesday, July 2 THE MEDITERRANEAN Union: Implications and Prospects for Israel and Palestine is the subject of the next meeting in the IPCRI series at Jerusalem's Ambassador Hotel, starting at 3 p.m. The speaker will be Alain Remy, France's consul-general in Jerusalem. Sunday, July 6 FORMER PRESIDENTIAL candidate Likud MK Reuven Rivlin will speak in English on Israel's Political Crisis at 7.30 p.m. at the home of Dr. Jan Sokolovsky, 14 Marcus Street, Talbiya, Jerusalem. As space is limited, reservations are required. For reservations contact: anglos@likud.org.il or (03) 566-1699; Shalom Helman at shalom@likud.org.il or (052) 477-6275. The event is under the auspices of Likud Anglos, the English-speaking division of the Likud. Organized in the spring of 2007, it now has active chapters in Jerusalem and six other cities, and has held more than 20 events that have attracted more than 1,200 people. It also publishes a monthly e-mail newsletter. For more information: anglos@likud.org.il or (03) 566-1699. 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 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 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 Van der Kam of the University of Notre Dame. This year's 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. 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 HU's Orion Center. 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 starting at 9 a.m. 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: (03) 513-2471 or (03) 512-1748.