Conference Circuit

The Life Sciences Faculty at Bar-Ilan University is hosting a two-day BioMedical Conference at Yigal Alon House in Safed.

By GREER FAY CASHMAN
Monday, December 17 WELFARE STATES, Markets and Efficiency: The Free Lunch Puzzle Continues is the title of the lecture to be given by Peter H. Lindert, Professor of Economics, University of California at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute's Third Annual Conference of the Economics and Society Program. The lecture begins at 6 p.m. Admission is free of charge. The venue is 43 Jabotinsky Street, Jerusalem. The lecture will be broadcast live on-line at the Institute's Web site www.vanleer.org.il. CIVIL RIGHTS groups from the OSCE Partner and participating States will join other international and Israeli NGOs in Tel Aviv for the first OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) Mediterranean Seminar to be held in Israel The conference, entitled "Combating Intolerance and Discrimination and Promoting Mutual Respect and Understanding," will be preceded by a special NGO Preparatory Meeting to discuss and submit recommendations to the international body for consideration on this subject and to facilitate and enhance coalition-building across diverse, cultural and religious communities and civil society groups throughout the OSCE region and Mediterranean Partner States. The organizations will discuss how to better combat discrimination and promote tolerance in their respective countries through the channels of women, education and the media. Participants include women's, educational, media, human and civil rights, democracy and religious NGOs and foundations from Israel, Morocco, Turkey, Nigeria, Albania, Bosnia, Germany, Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Russia and Britain. The Preparatory Meeting, which is being hosted jointly by the Citizens' Accord Forum between Jews & Arabs in Israel and the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of the OSCE, will be held at the Hilton Hotel in Tel Aviv. Keynote speakers at the event include Chairman of the Knesset Education Committee MK Rabbi Michael Melchior, Minister of Welfare and Social Services Isaac Herzog and Representative of the OSCE Chairmanship and Head of the Permanent Mission of Spain to the OSCE Ambassador Carlos Sanchez de Boado, as well as speakers from Morocco, Britain and Portugal. The meeting will also include seminars on the role of journalists, public personalities, women and educators in promoting mutual respect and understanding and in countering misperceptions and prejudices. The event will be conducted in English and French. For further details, contact: Rebecca Zeffert, foreign media adviser. Civil Society Preparatory Meeting - hosted by ODIHR and the Citizens' Accord Forum OSCE 2007 Mediterranean Seminar. Telephone: (054) 882-0661. STATE AND Religion in Turkey will be the subject of BESA Center discussion by Prof. Sinasi Gunduz of Istanbul University, Prof. Yasin Aktay of Selcuk University and Dr. Burhanettin Tatar of Dokuz Eylul University. They will discuss the characteristics of Turkish Islam, the Islamic discourse in Turkey: democracy, secularism and multiculturalism; and free space in religion-state relations. The discussion will be held at 5 p.m. in Seminar Room 120 on the first floor of the Chemistry Building (211) at Bar-Ilan University. Prof. Efraim Inbar of the BESA center will be the moderator. 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 Ya'acov Edri, Minister of 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. The 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. THE NETVISION Institute for Internet Studies at Tel Aviv University will host a seminar on International Relations and the Net. For details contact: eliha@post.tau.ac.il. Wednesday, December 19 THE NAME of Abba Eban, Israel's sterling statesman, has been recalled several times in recent weeks in connection with the anniversary of the UN Resolution for the Partition of Palestine and also in relation to the fifth anniversary of his death. Because there were so many other events in November, the Hebrew University decided to mark the fifth anniversary a little more than a month late, but with a discussion topic that most definitely would have appealed to Eban, whom many regard as the architect of Israeli diplomacy: The Role of the Diplomat in the 21st Century. The discussion organized by the University's Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the advancement of Peace and the Abba Eban Center for Israeli Diplomacy will be led by four former directors-general of the Foreign Ministry - Prof. Shlomo Avinery who will speak about the diplomat, the media and public opinion; Eitan Bentsur who will talk about the role of the diplomat in different parts of the world; Dr. David Kimche who will explore secret diplomacy in the face of media revelations in the Middle East; and Yoav Biran who will focus on the diplomat and the Israel Foreign Ministry in the decision making and implementation process. The discussions will take place at 12:30 p.m in the Abba Eban Center for Israeli Diplomacy at the university's Truman campus on Mount Scopus. Thursday, December 20 "THE BEST of Intentions?" the motives for the English abolition of the slave trade, together with the practical details of its implementation and the effects of abolition on three continents (Europe, Africa and America) will be explored by some of the leading scholars in the field at an international conference to be held in the Drachlis Hall of the Gilman Building on the Tel Aviv University campus from 10 a.m. They will address issues that proved to be central to the formation of the economic and social history of Africa, America, and Europe, and will hopefully shed light on modern forms of slavery and the best methods for putting an end to them. Slavery is yet to be abolished: women, children and cheap labor are still bought and sold around the world as commodities. However, the largest slave trade in history was carried out by Europeans who took Africans across the Atlantic and sold them in the Americas between the sixteenth and the nineteenth century. Approximately 12 million people were thus transferred and enslaved. England was one of the major beneficiaries of this commerce, and yet it was England that decided to put an end to this trade in human being; in 1807 the British Parliament passed a law forbidding the Atlantic slave trade, a law which eventually led to the abolition of slavery in the Americas. THE JERUSALEM Center for Jewish-Christian Relations will host a symposium on Christmas in Bethlehem - The Christian Communities and Pilgrims between Bethlehem and Jerusalem. The symposium will begin at 5 p.m. at the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, 20 Radaq Street. THE STRAUSS Group's Danona Institute will host a conference on Ecological Nutrition to prevent disease and to restore health: a glimpse from the global heights to the personal summit. The conference will be held in the Shefayim Auditorium. For further details and registration, call Sharon: (03) 718-8555 or 052-667-8335. Friday, December 21 INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST and Middle East War Correspondent Freda Keet will address the Israeli friends of Tel Aviv University on Ancient Anti-Semitism - Current Anti-Semitism: Are they different? The lecture will take place at 11 a.m. in the Rose and Morris Leigh Auditorium of the Porter United Kingdom Building of Life Sciences on the TAU campus. Monday, December 24 AN INTERNATIONAL two-day conference on Contemporary Reform Judaism - Sociology, Education and Theology, will take place the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, 43 Jabotinsky Street, beginning at 9:30 a.m. Among the subjects to be discussed are: The process of the return to tradition; Changing trends in Jewish education; Halacha and Ritual in Reform Judaism; Gender perceptions; The influence of Reform Judaism on other groups and movements; and Israeli Society and Reform Jews. Not all the speakers are necessarily affiliated with the Reform Movement. Lectures will be broadcast live on line on the Institute's Web site, and the recording will remain on line for subsequent access. Wednesday, December 26 THE REFUAH Institute will hold its first international conference on Torah, Psychology and Medicine at the Menachem Begin Conference Center, Jerusalem. The two-day event will feature 40 outstanding speakers including Tel Aviv Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, Tal Ben Shahar, Ph.D. Harvard University; Prof. Shimon Glick, MD., Rabbi Joshua Ritchie, MD, Prof. Gerald Schroeder, PhD., and many other well known lecturers. The program will include workshops, panel discussions, audio/video presentations, networking and special interest groups, career counseling and book signings by well-known authors. For further information and registration, call (02) 571-5112. Sunday, January 13 THE 24TH World WIZO Conference will be held at the Tel Aviv Hilton. The four-day event will be attended by representatives of more than 50 WIZO Federations from around the globe. Thursday, January 17 THE EILAT Business Conference for small- and medium-sized business will be held over a three-day period with participation of public relations guru Ran Rahav and government Minister Ruhama Avraham who is the liaison for Israel's 60th anniversary celebrations. For details and registration, call: (03) 638-2875. AN EXHIBITION and sixth annual conference on Events and Exhibitions will be held at the Tel Aviv Fairgrounds from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. under the auspices of Face2Face, a subsidiary of Events act. Theme-wise, the conference will focus on Israel's 60th anniversary celebrations and will feature the latest technologies available for turning functions into extraordinary events. The conference is intended for industrialists, marketing, public relations and advertising executives and for organizers of community festivities. Wednesday, January 23 As a prelude to the celebrations marking the 60th anniversary of the State of Israel, the Friends of the Hebrew University will host a seminar on the generation of 1948 and The War of Independence. Participants will address issues such as: What became of "The Young and the Beautiful?" The Generation of 1948? A portrait, a memory, a heritage; the Palmach; the War and its warriors; politics and religion, the "Old Jew" and the "New Jew;" the formation of collective Israeli memory; myth and reality; criminal activity and the War of Independence; the few against the many; the creation of the refugee problem; the legacy of the Generation of 1948 - Does the "Sabra" still exist...? Other related topics will also be discussed. Among the participants are: Prof. Alon Kadish, Prof. Yehoshua Ben-Arieh, Prof. Israel Bartal, Prof Daniel R. Schwartz, Prof. Raphael Israeli, Prof. Yechiam Weitz, Prof. Oz Almog, Prof. Maoz Azaryahu, Dr. Mordechai (Mora'le) Bar-On, Dr. Hillel Cohen, Former MK Geula Cohen, Rabbi Dr. Shlomo Riskin, Major General (Res.) MK Matan Vilnai, Major General (Res.) Dr. Elad Peled, Authors Yoram Kaniuk, Haim Gouri, Didi Manusi, Israel Harel and Rachel Rabin-Jacob. The seminar will be held at the Inbal Hotel, Jerusalem.