2011-2012 Fellows

The first annual theme for The Tikvah Center is Law & Jewish Civilization – The Challenge of Pedagogy, Education and Transmission.

Thematic Fellows

	Yehoyada Amir Rabbi and a Professor of Jewish Thought at Hebrew Union College (Jerusalem). He received his Ph.D. from Hebrew University (1994). He served for ten years (1999-2009) as the director of HUC-JIR’s Israel Rabbinic Program. Research: Halakhah and Aggadah Religious Renewal in a Zionist Context: Non-Orthodox Philosophies in (Eretz) Israel
	David Flatto Associate professor of Law, Religion, and History at Penn State University, Dickinson School of Law, and also teaches at NYU Law School. He was a Tikvah Fellow in Academic Year 2011-12 at NYU School of Law.  RESEARCH: Foundational Stories in the Jewish Legal Tradition
	Jonathan Garb Received his doctorate in 2000 from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he is now associate professor of Jewish Thought. In 2010, he was awarded the Hebrew University President’s Prize for Outstanding Researcher. RESEARCH: Mussar, Talmudic Methodology and Exegesis in the Circle of Ramhal
	Marc Hirshman (Berkowitz Fellow) Teaches rabbinic thought and midrash at the Melton Centre for Jewish Education of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem where he is the incumbent of the Mandel Chair in Jewish Education. He serves also as the director of the Institute for Research on the Land of Israel at Yad Ben Zvi in Jerusalem. RESEARCH: Studies in Rabbinic Thought: Education, Secular Knowledge, Pray and Israel
	Lawrence J. Kaplan Received his Ph.D. from Harvard University and his rabbinical ordination from Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary. He has taught Rabbinics and Jewish Philosophy in the Department of Jewish Studies of McGill University since 1972.  In the spring of 2004 he held a Harry Starr Fellowship at the Center for Jewish Studies of Harvard.  RESEARCH: Differing Methods and Approaches to Teaching Talmud in Contemporary Religious Zionist Yeshivot and Midrashot
	Benjamin Sommer Professor in the Department of Bible and Ancient Semitic Languages at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Previously he was the Director of the Crown Family Center for Jewish Studies at Northwestern University, where he taught from 1994 through 2008.  RESEARCH: Artifact or Scripture: The Jewish Bible between History and Theology
	Gila Stopler Senior lecturer of law at the Academic Center of Law & Business in Israel. Her areas of expertise are constitutional law, church state relations, multiculturalism and women's rights. She graduated from the Faculty of Law at the Tel Aviv University, and obtained LL.M and J.S.D degrees from the NYU School of Law where she served as a Public Service Scholar and a Hauser Research Scholar.  RESEARCH: Religious Education, Human Rights, and Democratic Values - The Case of Israel

At-Large Fellows

	Pierre Birnbaum (Joint Tikvah/Senior Emile Noël Fellow) Emeritus professor from University of Paris I where he taught political sociology. He begun his research by working in this field and has been publishing several books on Tocqueville, democracy, political elites and above all, a comparative approche of the State.  RESEARCH: Jewish Supreme Court Judges and the "Wall of Separation"
	Ruth Gavison (Joint Straus/Tikvah Fellow) Haim H. Cohn Professor (emerita) of Human Rights at the faculty of law, the Hebrew University. See www.gavison.com. RESEARCH: The Quest for Political Identity between Universalism and Particularism: Nationalism (Ethnic or Civic), Religion, Culture and Humanism
	Charles Leben (Joint Straus/Tikvah Fellow) Emeritus professor of law at Panthéon-Assas (Paris 2) University where he taught from 1991 to 2010 after some time atUniversité de Bourgogne (Burgundy University, Dijon).  RESEARCH: The Jewish Roots of International Law in Early Modern Europe
	Berachyahu Lifshitz Studied in a high Yeshivah and served in the IDF. His academic degrees (in law and in Talmud) are from the Hebrew University, where he served as the Dean of the Faculty of Law and as the head of The Institute for Research in Jewish Law. He is the Editor of the "Shenaton Hamishpat Ha'Ivry" and the "Jewish Law Annual."  RESEARCH: Two Concepts of Oral Law (The Sadducees-Pharisees Conflict; Interpretation; Authority; Rabbinic Sources; Maimonides and Nachmanides; Catholic and Protestants; Halachah and Kabbalah)