International Town Hall: "Fundamentalism or Freedom?" - Manhattan May 18, 2008

Religion and State: Fundamentalism or Freedom?
With Naomi Chazan, Jafar Farah, Gershom Gorenberg, and Frances Raday

NIF invites you to participate in our first international town hall meeting, an interactive debate via live webcast. A panel of four leading experts will probe the issue of religion and state in Israel before taking questions from viewers throughout the world. You can take part from home, or join us in Manhattan or Brooklyn for a public viewing and discussion.

ABOUT THE PANELISTS:
Naomi Chazan is incoming President of New Israel Fund’s board of directors. She is Professor Emerita of Political Science at the Hebrew University and currently heads the School of Government and Society at the Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yaffo. She served in the Knesset for 11 years, was Deputy Speaker of the Knesset from 1996-2003, and is an outspoken advocate for women's rights, civil rights, religious freedom, and peace.

Jafar Farah is Director of the Mossawa Center: The Advocacy Center for Arab Citizens of Israel. Prior to founding Mossawa, Farah served as an investigative journalist for Ha'aretz, and has written extensively about issues of concern to Israel's Arab minority.

Gershom Gorenberg is a senior correspondent for The American Prospect and the author of two books,
The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, and The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount. He has written articles for The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, and Mother Jones, among others. He blogs at southjerusalem.com.

Frances Raday is Director of the Concord Research Center for Integration of International Law in Israel, Visiting Professor at University College London, and Professor of Law at the Hebrew University. She is Chair of HEMDAT: The Council for Freedom of Religion in Israel, has served as an Expert Member of the UN Committee for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, and was the Founding Chair of the Israel Women's Network Legal Center.

ABOUT THE MODERATOR:
Michael Greenspan is a broadcast journalist, filmmaker, and writer, with hundreds of video and television productions to his credit. He recently completed the documentary Shifting Sands: Bedouin Women at the Crossroads with Dr. Ruth Westheimer, to be broadcast on PBS. During most of the 1980s, Greenspan was a Jerusalem and Middle East correspondent for CNN.

Official Website: http://www.nif.org/webcast