Israel Decides on March 17: Now What?

A Conversation Between

NIF Board Chair-Elect Talia Sasson and Harvard Kennedy School Professor Arthur Applbaum

Please register below.





Thursday, February 26 2014

7:00-7:30 p.m.  Special Reception for New Gen (young adults under 40)
(Please arrive a few minutes early.)

7:30-9:00 p.m.  Public Event

Harvard Hillel
52 Mount Auburn Street
Cambridge, MA 02138

Parking at Harvard Hillel is available on street as well as at nearby Holyoke Garage, which has reduced evening rates.


Israelis will vote on March 17 for a new government. This interactive conversation will address how Israel found itself in new elections so quickly and will explore deeper trends at play, including attempts to roll back democratic freedoms and incitement against the Palestinian-Israeli minority. Given various scenarios for who might form the next government, how might NIF issues unfold? Will Israel advance a shared society for Jews and non-Jews and restrict the ultra-Orthodox rabbinate’s control? Will we see an improvement in civil rights and social justice for all Israelis? What about human rights for Palestinians over the Green Line and African Refugees? New Israel Fund Board Chair-Elect Talia Sasson and Harvard Kennedy School Professor - and Harvard Hillel Board Member - Arthur Applbaum will engage in a wide-ranging conversation and take questions from the audience.

Attorney Talia Sasson heads her own law firm, representing organizations in administrative and civil cases in court. She is a board member of the New Israel Fund and a Co-Chair of the International Council of NIF. She is a board member in the Council for Peace and Security, a member of the Geneva Initiative’s steering committee, Yesh Din’s Public Council, and a counselor for some other NGO's in Israel. In 2009, she ran to the Knesset as representative of The New Movement-Meretz. From 2004 to 2010, Ms. Sasson taught a course on "Defenses through law on Democracy in Israel" in the faculty of law at Tel-Aviv University as adjunct professor. From August 2004 to March 2005, at the request of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Ms. Sasson served as a special legal advisor for the government and the author of the Sasson Report on illegal outposts in the West Bank and law enforcement on Israelis in the Palestinian territories. From 1979 to February 2004 she worked in the State Attorney’s office. From 1989 to 1993 she headed the Civil Department in the Jerusalem district attorney. From 1996 to 2004, she headed the Special Tasks Division of the State Attorney’s office. In that role she represented the government of Israel in the Supreme Court for 13 years in civil, criminal, constitutional and administrative cases and was involved also with different security and military issues.

Arthur Isak Applbaum is Adams Professor of Political Leadership and Democratic Values. His work on political legitimacy, civil and official disobedience, and role morality has appeared in journals such as Philosophy & Public Affairs, Journal of the American Medical Association, Harvard Law Review, Ethics, and Legal Theory. He is the author of Ethics for Adversaries, a book about the morality of roles in public and professional life. Applbaum has written about the ethics of executioners and of butlers, and he has consulted to the government about the ethics of spies. Recent articles include “Legitimacy without the Duty to Obey” and “Forcing a People to Be Free.” Applbaum recently completed a political philosophy novel for teenagers and hopes to complete a book on political legitimacy for adults soon. He was Acting Director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard, where he currently directs the undergraduate fellowships in ethics. Applbaum established the core course in political ethics at the Kennedy School, and also teaches the political theory field seminar in the Government Department and a freshman seminar, “What Happened in Montaigne’s Library on the Night of October 23, 1587, and Why Should Political Philosophers Care?” He has been a member of Harvard’s Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility and chairs the ethics advisory board of a stem cell research foundation. He is a member of Harvard Hillel's Board of Directors. Applbaum holds degrees from Princeton and Harvard. He was a Fulbright Scholar in Jerusalem, a Faculty Fellow in Ethics at Harvard, and a Rockefeller Fellow at Princeton University’s Center for Human Values.

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