S.Wald was born in 1936 in Milan, Italy. He grew up in Basel, Switzerland where he studied social sciences, history, and history of religions, graduating in 1962 as Ph.D. In 1964 he joined the Paris-based OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) where he stayed until his retirement in 2001. His career spanned education, technological innovation, science and technology policy, energy research policy and biotechnology policy. He was Head of the OECD/DSTI Biotechnology Unit. He joined the JPPPI in 2002 and worked on Jewish/Israeli relations with China; science and technology; and the history of Jewish civilization. Currently he reviews India-Israel-Jewish People links.

Three Reports written for JPPPI:
– China and the Jewish People – Old Civilizations in a New Era, Jerusalem 2004.
– “Science and Technology and the Jewish People”, JPPPI Annual Assessment 2005, Jerusalem 2005.
– Jewish Civilization at the Crossroads – Lessons from the History of Rise and Decline, to appear in 2010.

Three Research Papers written outside JPPPI:
– “China and Israel”, Encyclopedia Judaica, Second Edition, ed. Fred Skolnik, Vol. 4, Farmington Hills, 2007.
– “The ‘Confucianisation’ of the Jewish Community of Kaifeng: Jewish and Non-Jewish Historical Perspectives”, The Jews in Asia – Comparative Perspectives, ed. Pan Guang, Center of Jewish Studies Shanghai, The Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, 2007.
– “Chinese Jews in European Thought”, Youtai – Presence and Perception of Jews and Judaism in China, ed. Peter Kupfer, FASK, Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, ed. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main, 2008.

Ambassador Avi Gil Served as the Director General of Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs from April 2001-November 2002. He also served as Director-General of Israel’s Ministry of Regional Cooperation, Deputy Director-General of the Peres Center for Peace; the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff, Media Advisor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of Finance, and Executive Policy Advisor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. He has been closely involved in Israel’s policy-making and peace efforts, including the negotiations that led to the Oslo Accords and the peace treaty with Jordan. He is a Senior Fellow at the JPPPI and a was a close advisor to President Shimon Peres.

Michael Herzog is a Brigadier General in reserve. He was discharged in August 2010 from long service in the IDF, which included, among other things, combat as an infantryman in the Yom Kippur War, a long career in the Intelligence Division, the head of the Strategic Planning Division in the Planning Division (AGT), the military secretary to the defense minister and chief of staff Minister of Defense (a total of six years in the last two positions, with four defense ministers).

Herzog has been involved in all of Israel’s peace talks with the Palestinians, Syrians and Jordanians since 1993. Between May 2009 and March 2010, he served as a special envoy of the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defense in efforts to drive the political process.

He has also served and is serving as a research fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

In 2021 Herzog was named Israel’s Ambassador to the US.

Senior Fellow at JPPI, Dov Maimon leads the “Grand Strategy toward Islam” project, the “Israel-Diaspora New Paradigm” project and the Institute’s activities in Europe.

Among his action-oriented work, he is a member of the Advisory Committee for Improving access to Ultra-Orthodox to Higher Education chaired by Professor Manuel Trajtenberg. He is also the author of the Action Plan for bringing the developing mass migration of French Jews to Israel. Commissioned by governmental agencies, the plan was adopted by the Israeli Cabinet on June 22nd 2014.

Born in Paris, he earned a B.Sc. from the Technion (Haifa, Israel), a MBA from Insead (Fontainebleau, France), a M.A in Religious Anthropology and a Ph.D. in Islamic and Medieval Studies from the Sorbonne University. He is a laureate of the prestigious prize “Grand Prix du chancelier des universites 2005” awarded to the best French PhD work in Literature and Human Sciences. He is also a graduat of the Mandel School of Educational Leadership. Formerly an High-Tech industry entrepreneur, Dov is teaching at the School of Business Administration of the Ben Gurion University.