Israeli Government/Politics

Jonathan Balan

Johnatan is currently an MBA candidate at Brandeis International Business School.

Johnatan earned law and economics degrees simultaneously from the University of Haifa. He helped found and manage, along with his father and twin brother Mati, a franchise of RE/MAX real estate in Israel. Johnatan worked in the special risks department of Clal, Israel's biggest insurance and finance company. Most recently, Johnatan served as legal cousel for Israel Electric Company, where he dealt the company's local and international communications. Johnatan served as an officer in the Israeli Defense Force Intelligence Corps. He has had extensive involvement interacting with different cultures, and has volunteered with various organizations. Johnatan is currently an MBA candidate at Brandeis International Business School.

• Law, economics, & communications
• Modern, young Israel today
• The importance of the IDF

Dr. Dana Blander

Tufts University - Schusterman Visiting Israeli Professor

Dr. Dana Blander is an Academic Coordinator and Researcher at the Israeli Democracy Institute (IDI) in Jerusalem and the editor of IDI’s online Magazine “Parliament.” Her research focuses on Israeli politics, specifically public opinion and investigation committees. She received her degrees from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, including her Ph.D. in Social Sciences. Her doctoral thesis, “Ambivalence as a Challenge to The Political Order”, won the Hebrew University Berger Prize for academic excellence. She has written numerous articles addressing different aspects of Israeli politics, some of which were cited in Supreme Court rulings. Currently, she is co-authoring a book about the Israeli political system.

• Israel as a Jewish and Democratic state.
• Israel’s Political System – an Overview.
• Israel's Democracy Discontents – the Challenges to Israeli Democracy.
• Constitution for Israel – With or Without it.
• The Role of Inquiry Commissions in Israel.
• Referendum in Israel – For and Against.

Gil Breiman

Gil Breiman, Esq. is a partner at the law firm of Burns and Levinson LLP, practicing in the firm's international business, corporate finance and governance, and science and technology practice groups.

As an attorney, Mr. Breiman often represents companies and individuals engaging in business between the United States and Israel, and has represented and advised Israeli government agencies in the United States. He currently serves as the Co-Chair of the International Transactions Committee of the Boston Bar Association. He often represents foreign and domestic corporations and individuals establishing or expanding national and international business in such matters as corporate finance, venture capitalism, technology licensing and commercialization, and various other fields. Mr. Breiman is also an Adjunct Professor at the Sawyer School of Management, at Suffolk University and he frequently lectures and writes on issues concerning business and international trade.

In 2005, Mr. Breiman was selected by Massachusetts SuperLawyers as a "Rising Star" and featured in the May 2005 issue of Boston magazine. He received his Bachelor’s Degree from Tel-Aviv University and a dual JD/MBA degree from Suffolk University.

Topics:

• Legal & Cultural Issues Concerning Business & Trade between Israel and the United States
• Government Incentives for Research and Development
• Economic Relations between the United States and Israel

Chuck Freilich

Chuck Freilich is a Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center's International Security Program and co-directs a Middle Eastern affairs consultancy.

Dr. Chuck Freilich has served as Israel's Deputy National Security Adviser for Foreign Affairs. Now a Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center's International Security Program, Dr. Freilich's primary areas of expertise are U.S. Middle East policy and Israeli national security policy. He is currently writing a book on Israeli national security decision-making processes and teaches Political Science at Tel Aviv and Hebrew Universities. He also co-directs a Middle Eastern affairs consultancy.

Dr. Freilich was a Senior Analyst at the Israel Ministry of Defense, focusing on strategic affairs, Policy Advisor to a cabinet minister, and a Delegate at the Israeli Mission to the United Nations. He has been the Executive Director of two nonprofit organizations, Israel's Zahavi Association, dealing with lobbying, educational, and consumer programs on behalf of underprivileged families, and the Golda Meir Association in the United States. He served in the Israel Defense Forces for five years and is a reserve major.

Dr. Freilich earned his Ph.D. from Columbia University, where he wrote his dissertation on "Realism and Messianism; National Security Decision Making in Israel". He was born in New York and immigrated to Israel as a teenager.

• The Israeli Government
• US-Israel relations

Dr. (Mr.) Nahshon Perez
Boston University - Schusterman Visiting Israeli Professor

Dr. Nahshon Perez is a Professor of political science who spent the 2009-10 academic year as a visiting scholar at UCLA’s Nazarian Center for Israel Studies. His research interests include both Israel Studies and political theory. He received his Ph.D. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has written multiple articles and publications addressing illiberal communities, Israeli society and pluralism and market created pressures including “Why Tolerating Illiberal Groups is Often Incoherent: On Internal Minorities, Liberty, 'Shared Understandings' and Skepticism” in Social Theory and Practice (2010). Professor Perez is currently working on “Discrimination vs. Permissible Preferential Treatment in U. of Haifa’s Dormitories, or, When Cicero Met Adalah in the Cafeteria” for Israel Affairs.

Ilan Segev

Ilan Segev is currently in the private banking division at Credit Suisse Investment Bank.

Mr. Segev joined the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and served as a cadet until 1996. His first mission was as the Deputy Head of Mission in the Trade Representation Office in Doha, Qatar. From July 1998 to 2002, Mr. Segev was stationed at the Consulate General of Israel in Atlanta as the State of Israel’s second highest-ranking diplomat in the southeastern United States.

Following his service as an officer in the Israel Defense Forces, Mr. Segev received his Bachelor’s Degree in Economics and East Asian Studies from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He recently received his MBA from Harvard Business School.

• Current Events: Israel's Agenda Today
• Israel-Diaspora Relations
• Israeli Politics, Government, and Statehood
• The Israeli Economy and Doing Business in Israel

Tal Snir

Tal is a graduate student in the MBA program of MIT Sloan School of Management, VP of the Israel Business Club and a Co-Organizer of the MIT Sloan Israel Trek.

Tal Snir, Captain (Reserve), has a 10 years military experience in various commanding roles as a combat officer in a classified front line unit. He participated in both the Second Lebanon War in 2006 and the Gaza operation in 2009 and was nominated for the President of Israel Award for outstanding officers. He enjoys teaching and spent a significant time of his military service educating and training the next generation of commanders and leaders.

Tal was living in Tel Aviv until he was accepted to MIT.

• Military and Society in Israel
• The Second Lebanon war from the perspective of a front line soldier
• Living in Tel Aviv - the city that never sleeps

Ilan Troen

Professor Ilan Troen is the Karl, Harry, and Helen Stoll Professor of Israel Studies at Brandeis University.

Professor Troen received a B.A. from Brandeis University, and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.

Professor Troen's area of expertise is Israeli studies. He is a founding editor of the journal, "Israel Studies" in transnational history. He is also a long-term member of the editorial board of the Journal of American History, with particular interest in the areas of transit of ideas and comparative history.

Professor Troen continues to develop courses in Israel Studies from the undergraduate to graduate level. He has introduced new USEM entitled "Divergent Jewish Centers; America and Israel" within the context of comparative history and he continues to expand teaching of faculty across the country and from abroad through the Brandeis University Summer Institute for Israel Studies (that now conducts workshops outside the "summer".) With the publication of "Jews and Muslims in the Arab World; Haunted by Pasts Real and Imagined," he is currently engaged in new research on how different peoples claim land, a study that focuses on Israel in a comparative perspective.

• Israel as a Jewish AND Democratic State?
• Whose land is it anyway?
• Competing Claims to the Same Lane
• "The Blame Game"
• The Israel-Arab Wars