Sunday, December 14

'GLOBES', ISRAEL'S business daily, will hold its annual two-day Israel Business Conference at the David Intercontinental Hotel in Tel Aviv. This year's conference will focus on political and economic developments as the world faces a spreading financial crisis. Leading figures of the international business community, including top executives of major corporations, will be joined by prominent academics and researchers, media experts, government ministers, MKs, diplomats and decision makers in various fields. This year's conference takes on added significance as the global economic crisis brings the issues under discussion to the forefront of the global economic and public agenda. Panel discussions will revolve around issues affecting economies, management and governance.

THE INTERNATIONAL Committee of the Red Cross and the Israel Democracy Institute will co-host an international forum on "Restrictions of Liberty of Terror Suspects" at IDI headquarters in Jerusalem. The IDI says a common reaction of democracies to the growing threat of terrorism in the post-9/11 era has been to resort to measures found outside the ordinary criminal process, procedures designed to limit the liberty of terrorist suspects. The program will be in English.

THE HEBREW University of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv University will co-host a multifaceted two-day conference on "Bartleby's Wall Street: Parables of Modernity," with the participation of scholars from American universities. Sessions on the first day will commence at 10 a.m. at Beit Maiersdorf and will continue the following day from 10:30 a.m. in the Gilman Building on the TAU campus.

FACING JIHAD, a forum that aims to educate Israelis about the true nature of Islam as well as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, will host a conference in Jerusalem at the Begin Heritage Center, 6 Nahon Street, at 10 a.m. Speakers will include MK Arieh Eldad, Dutch Member of Parliament Geert Wilders and Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum.

Fitna, the controversial film by Wilders, will be publicly screened in Israel for the first time. To confirm attendance, e-mail elie@ruderfinn.co.il or call (054)467-6967. For additional information, visit ww.facingjihad.com.

MORE THAN 350 participants from some 40 countries plan to participate in a four-day international environment-focused conference at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev's Sde Boker campus and sites in the Negev,under the auspices of BGU's Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research (BIDR). Among the co-sponsors of the conference are the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the Foreign Ministry, the Jewish National Fund, the US Embassy in Tel Aviv and Netafim, the global leader in smart-water solutions for agriculture. The keynote speaker will be Prof. James Reynolds of the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University in North Carolina. For information on the conference: http://cmsprod.bgu.ac.il/Eng/units/bidr/desertification2008.

LIVING IN Space, a lecture in Hebrew by Dr. Omri Wendel of the Hebrew University will be delivered at 5 p.m. at the Wise Auditorium, Edmond J. Safra campus at Givat Ram. It is part of the "Heavens Above!" series of lectures sponsored by the Hebrew University Authority for Community and Youth. Admission is free. For details call (02)658-6256.

THE JEWISH Vegetarian Society will host Daniel Erlich of Animal-Log (www.animal-tv.org), who will talk in Hebrew on advocating vegetarianism through video-activism, community TV and the Internet. The lecture begins at 7 p.m. in the JVS Center, 8 Balfour Street, Jerusalem. Admission is free, as are refreshments. For more details contact Peter at Singer@singer49@netvision.net.il.

Monday, December 15

ATTORNEY-GENERAL Menahem Mazuz will lecture on "Responsibility and Leadership" at the graduation ceremony of LLM alumni of the Legacy Heritage Fund's course of public and international law, run jointly by TAU's Buchman Law Faculty and Chicago's Northwestern University. The ceremony will be held in the Brenner Hall of the Law Faculty at 7 p.m.

MAJ. GEN. (res.) Amos Gilad will speak publicly for the first time about the current negotiations with Syria at the BESA Center conference on Israeli-Syrian relations. The annual conference is in memory of BESA Center associate Avraham Rotem. It will be held at 2.30 p.m. at the Feldman Conference Center, Bar-Ilan University, Building 301. Among the speakers will be Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum and Likud MK Yuval Steinitz , former chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

BAR-ILAN University will host a three-day international multidisciplinary conference on "Representing the Holocaust: New Perspectives." The conference has been jointly organized by the departments of comparative literature and French in the Faculty of Humanities. It is in honor of Auschwitz survivor Simone Veil, former French minister of health and president of the European Union, honorary president of the Foundation for the Memory of the Holocaust in Paris, and founder of the Simone Veil chair in Literature and Resistance at Bar-Ilan. Veil, who holds an honorary doctorate from Bar-Ilan, will attend the conference, which is also dedicated to the memory of Prof. Judith Kauffmann, who, during a career spanning almost 40 years in Bar-Ilan's French department, devoted much of her research and teaching to the Holocaust in French literary texts. Speakers include Catherine Coquio, professor of comparative literature at the University of Poitiers and president of the International Association for Research on Crimes against Humanity and Genocide; Rabbi David Halivni, Auschwitz survivor, formerly of the Jewish Theological Seminary and Columbia University, Israel Prize Laureate in Talmud and a current lecturer at Bar-Ilan; Charlotte Wardi, a Holocaust survivor and professor emeritus in comparative literature at Haifa University; Hanna Yaoz, specialist of Hebrew Holocaust poetry and director of Bar-Ilan's Sal van Gelder Center for Teaching of the Holocaust; renowned historian Dan Michman, director of Bar-Ilan's Arnold and Leona Finkler Institute of Holocaust Research; and Yaakov Iram, who holds Bar-Ilan's UNESCO/Josef Burg chair in Education for Human Values, Tolerance and Peace.

A RESEARCH seminar on "Jewish image in historic Egyptian film" will be led by Sariel Birnbaum of the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace. A panel discussion on the subject will be chaired by Prof. Robert Wistrich, director of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism. The seminar will begin at 10.30 a.m. in Room 400, Harman Institute for Contemporary Jewry, Gaster Building, HU Mount Scopus campus. For details call (02)588-2494

Tuesday, December 16

GIRLS AND /or Boys: Gender and Childhood from the Chinese Historical Perspective is the subject of a lecture in English by Prof. Hsiung Ping-chen of the Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, Taiwan. It is under the auspices of the Asia Unit at the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace. The lecture will begin at 10:30 a.m. in the Abba Eban Conference Room, Truman Institute, HU Mount Scopus campus. For details call (02)588-2329.

Wednesday, December 17

THE FOURTH annual conference for doctoral students in the fields of political science, international relations and public policy, in memory of Yitzhak Rabin, will be held at the Maiersdorf Faculty Club, HU Mount Scopus campus.

Thursday, December 18

THE 4th Jaffa Call to Action Convention will take place at the Arab Jewish Center in Jaffa, 109 Kedem St., from 9:30 a.m.-6 p.m., with the participation of government officials, leading figures from Israel's Arab community, cabinet ministers, MKs and academics. Topics to be discussed include: The status of Arab culture in Israel; The culture of Arab society and its place in Israel's fabric of shared life; Establishing an official day to salute Arabic language and culture in Israel; and Education for Coexistence. For registration and more details call Sharon at (02)673-1118; fax at (02)673-1119; e-mail at yachad1@netvision.net.il; or The Jaffa Convention Web site: www.jaffaconvention.org.il.

HOLY SITES and Ownership of Religious Property, a conference sponsored by the Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law, LUMSA University, Rome and the International Foundation Interreligious Intercultural Education (IFIIE), will be held at Tantur Ecumenical Institute for Theological Studies, Jerusalem. The conference will consider legal and political issues of religious property in the State of Israel, focusing on the interplay of legal doctrine and politics. Recent events, such as the issues of Greek Orthodox land sales or the assertions of the Russian Orthodox Church over land control, have made this subject of particular interest to both lawyers and politicians. For more information contact Avi Margolin at avi.margolin@gmail.com.

Conference Circuit

Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz will lecture on "Responsibility and Leadership."