Israel, From The Inside Out

Cheif Justice (ret.) Dorit Beinisch, Weistein Family Distinguished Fellow, is a Senior Fellow at the Center on Law and Security.  Dorit Beinisch served as the President of the Supreme Court of Israel from 2006-2012 and as Justice of the Supreme Court since December 1995.  Before joining the Supreme Court, Justice Beinisch served in the Israeli Ministry of Justice for 28 years holding different positions in the Criminal Law and Constitutional and Administrative Law divisions.  Her last role in the Ministry of Justice was the State Attorney of Israel in charge of all state litigation in courts. Throughout her public service, Beinisch represented the state of Israel in major cases before the Supreme Court.  President Beinisch received her legal education (LL.B. and LL.M. summa cum laude) from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Stanley Fischer, Distinguished Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, is the former governor of the Bank of Israel and a former top official at both the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Under Fischer’s leadership as governor of the Bank of Israel, Israel’s economy grew consistently through most of 2008 and 2009 despite the global economic recession. From 2002 to 2005 Fischer was vice chairman of Citigroup. Fischer served as first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund from 1994 to 2001. He was chief economist at the World Bank from 1988 to 1990. Between 1973 and 1994 he taught economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Fischer received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the London School of Economics and his PhD from MIT. Prior to taking his position at MIT, Fischer held a faculty appointment at the University of Chicago. He has also held visiting positions at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Hoover Institution at Stanford.

Moshe Halbertal, Gruss Professor of Law at NYU School of Law, is the Professor of Jewish Thought and Philosophy at the Hebrew University, and a fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute. He received his Ph.D. from the Hebrew University in 1989, and from 1988-1992 he was a fellow at the Society of Fellows at Harvard University. Moshe Halbertal served as a visiting Professor at Harvard Law School and the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He is the author of the books Idolatry (co authored with Avishai Margalit) andPeople of the Book: Canon, Meaning and Authority, both published by Harvard University Press. He is also the author of Concealment and Revelation: Esotericism in Jewish Tradition and Its Philosophical Implications published by Princeton University Press. His latest book, Maimonides: Life and Thought provides a comprehensive and accessible introduction to Maimonides’ life and work, revealing how his philosophical sensibility and outlook informed his interpretation of Jewish tradition. Moshe Halbertal is the recipient of the Bruno Award of the Rothschild foundation, and the Goren Goldstein award for the best book in Jewish Thought in the years 1997-2000.

Leon Wieseltier, Literary Editor at The New Republic, was educated at Columbia University, where he studied philosophy, art history, and literature; Balliol College, Oxford, where he studied philosophy; and Harvard University, where he studied Jewish history. From 1979 to 1982 he was a member of the Society of Fellows at Harvard University. He is the author of Nuclear War, Nuclear Peace; Against Identity; and the widely acclaimed Kaddish, which has been translated into many languages. His many influential essays – on culture, politics, and religion; on foreign policy and national security policy; on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Middle East; on humanitarian intervention and contemporary genocide; and other subjects – have been widely published in the United States and abroad. He has also published translations of modern Hebrew poetry. He has been the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards. He lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife Jennifer Bradley and his son Matthew Wieseltier.