Conference Circuit

BESA, THE Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, is hosting a conference on Russia and the Middle East.

By GREER FAY CASHMAN
Sadat Begin 224.88 (photo credit: Archive photo)
Sadat Begin 224.88
(photo credit: Archive photo)
Sunday, December 9 THE ANNUAL two-day Globes Israel Business Conference 2007 - Israel's largest business conference - will be held at the David Intercontinental Hotel, Tel Aviv, and focus on the issue of the global economy. The conference will be held in the presence of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Finance Minister Ronnie Bar-On, Communications Minister Ariel Attias, opposition head MK Binyamin Netanyahu, Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer, who also will be among the keynote speakers. Leaders of the international and Israeli business communities academics and researchers, CEOs of great corporations and media personalities will be among the participants, who inter alia will include Robert Friedman, the International Editor of Fortune Magazine; Prof. Jacob Frenkel, former governor of the Bank of Israel (vice Chairman, AIG; chairman, Group of Thirty G-30); Dr. Josef Ackermann, CEO, Deutsche Bank; Abby Joseph Cohen partner and chief US investment strategist at Goldman, Sachs & Co.; Deven Sharma President of Standard & Poor's; Brian Henderson, senior vp, Merrill Lynch; Marie-Lucie Morin, deputy minister of International Trade in Canada; Dr. Henrique Meirelles, Governor of the central bank of Brazil; Phil Blazer, founder and president/CEO of Jewish Life TV (JLTV), America's first and only 24/7 Jewish television channel, launched in 2006; Mohammad Gawdat, managing director for Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa, Google; Walt Mossberg, co-executive editor The Wall Street Journal; Martin Pompadour, executive vice president, News Corp.; and numerous other personalities, with global influence in their respective fields. Further information about the Israel Business Conference is available at its Web site: www.globes.co.il/veida2007. PORT SA'ID, Its Jews and their Immigration to Israel is the topic of a symposium to be held at 5 p.m. in Auditorium 496 of the Gilman Building on the Tel Aviv University campus. The symposium is under the auspices of TAU's Department of Middle Eastern and African History and the Center for Research into the Heritage of the Jews of Egypt. Former residents of Port Sa'id will be among the speakers as will Lova Eliav, Avraham Dar and Shlomo Hillel who were all involved in Operation Tushia, a sensitive mission, which in the early 1950s worked to bring Jews from Egypt in general, and Port Sa'id in particular, to Israel. Now octogenarians, the three men who contributed greatly to Israel's development through clandestine intelligence operations, military service, diplomacy, politics, illegal immigration, immigrant absorption, education, etc, are separately and together the walking history of the state. THE NATIONAL Conference of Volunteers will take place at Bar Ilan University from 8 a.m. The opening address will deal with the contribution of voluntary organizations and their members to the creation of a fair and just society in Israel. Participants will then divide into discussion groups that will each deal with a specific topic: Women for themselves and others; Volunteers in the service of consumerism; Voluntary work in the field of employment and the protection of workers' rights; Using workers as volunteers; and The Internet in the service of volunteers. Participation fee is NIS 50 for members of the National Volunteers Council and NIS 60 for non-members. Monday, December 10 TWO SEPARATE venues have been chosen for the two-day conference "Marginal in the Center," which begins on Monday at 6 p.m. at the Bronfman Family Reception Center, ground floor of the Sherman Building, Hebrew University Mount Scopus, opposite the Senate Building steps. The conference continues at 10 a.m. on Tuesday at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, 43 Jabotinsky Street, Jerusalem. Sessions include "The political culture of existential fear" (in Hebrew), "Why not colonialism?" (in English) - including lectures on "Israeli exceptionalism and the sociology of Baruch Kimmerling" and "The Palestinians in Israeli sociology." Speakers will be from Israel, the United States, Britain, Canada and the Palestinian Authority. The conference, in memory of Prof. Baruch Kimmerling, is under the auspices of the department of Sociology and Anthropology at the Hebrew University and the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute. For further details, call (02) 588-3048, or (02)560-5222. THE FRIERICH-Ebert-Stiftung in cooperation with The Dr. Otto Georg Chair in European Studies at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya and The German Innovation Center of the Science Center North Rhine-Westphalia and IDC Herzliya sponsored by the Volkswagen Stiftung is hosting a Conference on Turkey, Israel and the European Union: Is Turkey still a Western Team Player? The conference will begin at 9:30 a.m. at The Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya Kanfei Nesharim St., Herzliya, in the Chais Family Auditorium (CL05), Sammy Ofer School of Communications. Turkish Ambassador Namik Tan obviously will be among the speakers, but there will be other dignitaries from Turkey as well including Alon Liel, a former Israel ambassador to Turkey who is currently with the IDC's Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy. Discussions will be conducted in Hebrew, English and French with simultaneous translations. Transportation to and from the event is available from Tel Aviv (Arlozorov Station, Park and Drive parking lot, departure at 8:45 a.m.); and from Jerusalem (Inbal Hotel, departure at 7:45 a.m.). Return immediately after the lecture. For registration and transport, call: (09) 952-7260; e-mail: rsvp@idc.ac.il. Tuesday, December 11 IT'S THAT time of year again and accountants and lawyers are getting ready for the end of the 2007 fiscal year. Changes in the law and battles with taxation authorities over whether certain taxes are or are not legitimate, are just two of the issues that will be raised at a conference on preparedness for the end of the fiscal year that will take place at the Sheraton City Tower Hotel from 8:30 a.m. For further details, call (03) 565-2100, Merav ext. 1145 or Orit ext. 1270. Thursday, December 13 BESA, THE Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, is hosting a conference on Russia and the Middle East with the participation of Prof. Sergey Kurginyan, president of the Moscow Experimental Creative Center who will talk about The World as Seen from Moscow; Dr. Alexander Nagorny of EEC Moscow who will talk about Russia and the Persian Gulf; Dr. Yuri Byaly, vice president Moscow EEC who will discuss Russia and the Arab-Israeli conflict; and Prof. Sergey Kuruginyan, who will chair one of the sessions. There will, of course, be Israeli speakers as well, including BESA's own Dr. Yuri Petreshevsky, whose name betrays his Russian background. He will talk about the rationale for Russian-Hamas relations. The event begins at 9:30 a.m. in the Beck Auditorium of Bar Ilan University. There will be simultaneous English/Russian translations. Monday, December 17 THE LIFE Sciences Faculty at Bar Ilan University is hosting a two-day BioMedical Conference at Yigal Alon House in Safed. The wide ranging conference, which begins at 10:30 a.m. will take place in the presence of Yaakov Edery, Minister for Immigrant Absorption and the development of the Negev and the Galilee. Tuesday, December 18 THE HEBREW University's Shasha Center for Strategic Studies, the Federmann School of Public Policy and Government and the Faculty of Law are hosting a conference in which they are asking: Can Democracy Overcome Terror? Respondents to the question are: Former Supreme Court President Judge Aharon Barak: and Prof. Richard Posner, former Chief Judge of the US Court of Appeals, 7th Circuit. Moderator will be Shasha Center director Efraim Halevy, a former head of Mossad. The conference will be held in English at the Mexico Hall on the University's Mount Scopus campus commencing at 5:30 p.m.