Expert Panellist Bios:

Professor Derek Penslar is the William Lee Frost Professor of Jewish History at Harvard University. His research specialties are modern Jewish history in Europe, Israel, and North America. Between 1998 and 2016, Derek held the Samuel Zacks Chair in Jewish History at U of T, and between 2012 and 2016, he was the inaugural holder of the Stanley Lewis Chair in Modern Israel Studies at Oxford. Derek has written a number of books, including Shylock’s Children: Economics and Jewish Identity in Modern Europe, Israel in History: The Jewish State in Comparative Perspective; Jews and the Military: A History; and, most recently, Theodor Herzl: The Charismatic Leader (2020). Derek is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and president of the American Academy for Jewish Research.

Mark S. Anshan is a lawyer and a former Canadian diplomat, serving on several non-profit boards. He provides legal, business, strategic and organisational advice to not-for-profits and charities. Prior to becoming a lawyer, he served in the Canadian Foreign Service at the United Nations and the Canadian Embassy in Stockholm, Sweden. Mark is a past President of Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto, and past President of ARZA Canada and past Chair of ARZENU.

Professor David Dewitt joined York University in 1983, following studies at UBC, University of Chicago, and Stanford University and appointments at UBC and U of Alberta. He is now University Professor Emeritus & Senior Scholar, International Relations. Author and editor of 11 books on international affairs and foreign policy, he served from 1988-2006 as Director, York Centre for International & Security Studies (YCISS), two terms as York’s Associate Vice-President Research & Innovation, followed by a four-year leave of absence as Vice President Research & Programs at the independent think tank, Centre for International Governance & Innovation (CIGI). He is currently an advisor to the recently established Canadian think tank, International Peace & Diplomacy (IPD).

Jon Allen was Canada’s Ambassador to Israel from 2006-2010. He is currently a Senior Fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto and at Glendon College, York University and a Distinguished Fellow of the Canada International Council. He is the President of Project Rozana, a not for profit whose objective is to build bridges between Palestinians and Israelis via the health sector, and a Member of the Board of Transparency International Canada.

Professor Howard Adelman retired as Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at York University in 2003. He was the founder and director of York’s Centre for Refugee Studies and editor of Refuge for ten years. Best known for his work in applied philosophy, he co-authored a major study entitled Early Warning and Conflict Management: Joint Evaluation of Emergency Assistance to Rwanda (1996) as part of the 5-volume study International Response to Conflict and Genocide: Lessons from the Rwanda Experience. In December 2016, Adelman was named a Member of the Order of Canada.

Dylan Hanley is currently Director, Public Affairs with The U15, advocating on behalf of Canada’s leading research universities to the federal government. Prior to his role with The U15, Dylan spent almost a decade with CIJA, Canada’s leading Jewish advocacy organization, where he was responsible for government relations and university outreach. His work there included dealing with federal and provincial governments, senior university administrations, and working to build bridges between Canada and Israel around issues of innovation and R&D. Since leaving CIJA, Dylan continues strong involvement in the Canadian Jewish community, notably in building Canada-Israel partnerships in science and innovation, including as Canadian co-chair of the bilateral working group on research partnerships with Global Affairs Canada.

Jasmin Habib is the Chair of the Political Science Department at the University of Waterloo, former Director of the PhD Global Governance at the Balsillie School of International Affairs (2019-2022) and founding Director of the Global Engagement Seminar Program (2016-2019). She holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology (McMaster University) and an M.A. in International Peace Studies (University of Notre Dame). Among her publications are Israel, Diaspora and the Routes of National Belonging (2019, 2nd ed) and America Observed: On an Anthropology of the United States. Jasmin was born in Israel, her mother is Jewish and the daughter of Holocaust survivors and her father is Palestinian, forcibly displaced from his home during the Nakba, later becoming a citizen of Israel. Her research and publications focus on the politics of empire and the practices of decolonization with primary interest in the experiences of war-affected refugees now living in Israel, Palestine, Canada and the United States; Indigenous practices and relations of autonomy in North America. Her work is primarily ethnographic and collaborative. She has held several editorial roles including as General Editor of the Cultural Spaces Series at the University of Toronto Press and Editor-in-Chief and Anglophone Editor of Anthropologica, the flagship journal of the Canadian Anthropology Society. In 2022, she was awarded the Weaver-Tremblay Award, the Canadian Anthropology Society’s highest honour.

Expert Guest Bios:

The Honourable Bob Rae, P.C., C.C., O.Ont., Q.C., in addition to his legal practice, Mr. Rae is a Fellow of the Forum of Federations, Massey College, and the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights. He teaches at the University of Toronto in the School of Public Policy and Governance, the Faculty of Law, Massey College, and Victoria University. He is also a mediator and arbitrator with ADR Chambers. He is the author of five books. In October 2017, Mr. Rae was appointed as Canada’s Special Envoy to Myanmar. In this role, he engaged in diplomatic efforts to address the crisis in the country’s Rakhine State and wrote the report Tell Them We’re Human in 2018. In March 2020, he was named Canada’s Special Envoy on Humanitarian and Refugee Issues to continue the important work he started as Special Envoy to Myanmar, while also addressing other pressing humanitarian and refugee issues around the world. Bob Rae is a Privy Councillor, a Companion of the Order of Canada, a member of the Order of Ontario, and has numerous awards and honorary degrees from institutions in Canada and around the world.

Asher Susser is Professor Emeritus of Middle Eastern History at Tel Aviv University (TAU). He was the Director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern Studies at TAU for twelve years and taught for over thirty-five years in TAU’s Department of Middle Eastern History. He has been a Fulbright Fellow; a visiting professor at Cornell University, the University of Chicago, Brandeis University, and the Stein Family Professor of Modern Israel Studies at the University of Arizona. He is the author of Israel, Jordan and Palestine; The Two-State Imperative. His online course on The Emergence of the Modern Middle East has been taken by some 120,000 students in over 160 countries.

Ambassador Alon Pinkas served as Israel’s Consul General in New York from 2000 – 2004. Prior to that, Pinkas served as the Chief of Staff to two foreign ministers and was the adviser on US affairs to former Prime Minister Ehud Barak (1999-2001). He was also the policy adviser to two former foreign ministers, Shimon Peres and Ehud Barak. Pinkas participated in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations following Camp David and was a member of the UN-Israel negotiating team on Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon and negotiations with Syria in 1999-2001. He was appointed by Prime Minister Barak to the US-Israel strategic Policy Planning Group. Today he continues his work as a foreign affairs analyst and commentator in foreign and Israeli media outlets in TV, radio and newspapers, as well as International political consulting in several countries. He holds a BA Cum Laude from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in Political Science and an MA Cum Laude in US Government and International Relations from Georgetown University, Washington DC.

Arie Krampf is an Associate Professor at the School of Government and Society at the Academic College of Tel Aviv Yaffo. Prof. Krampf’s research focuses on the interaction between security and the economy in the context of small countries. His recent book is The Israeli Path to Neoliberalism: State Continuity Change (Routledge 2018). He also studies and teaches the political economy of central banking and financial globalization.

Eugene (Evgeny) Finkel is the Kenneth H. Keller Associate Professor of International Affairs at Johns Hopkins University. He was born in Ukraine and grew up in Israel. Finkel is the author of Ordinary Jews: Choice and Survival during the Holocaust (Princeton University Press, 2017) and, together with Scott Gehlbach, of Reform and Rebellion in Weak States (Cambridge University Press, 2020). His next book, Bread and Autocracy: Food, Politics and Security in Putin’s Russia, co-authored with Janetta Azarieva and Yitzhak Brudny is forthcoming with Oxford University Press.

Dr. Doron Navot is a senior lecturer and head of the Political Theory and Governance department, the School of Political Sciences at the University of Haifa. He also heads the Jewish-Arab Center at the University of Haifa. His areas of research are political corruption, law and politics, and Israeli politics.

Yossi Shain is the Romulo Betancourt Professor of Political Science at Tel Aviv University where he also serves as the Head of the Aba Eben Program of Diplomacy and Co-Chair of the MA Program in Political Leadership. He is also a Full Professor of Comparative Government and Diaspora Politics at Georgetown University and the Founding Director of the Program for Jewish Civilization. In 2007 he served pro-bono as President of the Western Galilee College. Outside the academy he has served on national and international committees related to Diaspora and migration policies, security and human rights, and the Jewish World. He also worked with NGOs and Governmental agencies in Israel, the US, Mexico, and Russia and with research groups attached to the United Nations.

Dr. Nadine Baudot-Trajtenberg is a Canadian-born Israeli economist, who holds an Economics Degree from the University of Oxford (obtained while on a Rhodes Scholarship), and a PhD in Economics from Harvard University. After moving to Israel in 1985, her career spanned Academia, two decades in the private sector mostly in Banking and Asset Management, and more recently in public policy as Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Israel for a 5-year term that ended in March 2019.  While at the Bank of Israel she was a member of the Monetary Policy Committee as well as of the Governing Council, she served on the Public Committee for Financial Market Reforms and the Committee for the Taxation of Natural Resources. Dr. Baudot-Trajtenberg led the setup for the Israeli Sovereign Wealth Fund and the establishment of the National Credit Registry. She was also responsible for the relationship with the Palestinian Monetary Authority and created an inter-ministerial committee to investigate the impact of cryptocurrencies and crypto assets on the financial system. She teaches global economics and economic policy at Reichman University in Herzliya, worked as a Consultant for the Bank of International Settlement in Basle, Switzerland (known as the “Bank of Central Banks”) and is involved in an innovative financial venture, amongst others. She continues to be active in promoting women in finance and economic policy and sits on the board of various institutions, including the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.