A Distinguished Scholar in North American History at McGill University living in Jerusalem, Gil Troy is an award-winning American presidential historian and a leading Zionist activist. The author of nine works on US history, his seven books on Zionism include the classic anthology, The Zionist Ideas. He recently published To Resist the Academic Intifada: Letters to My Students on Defending the Zionist Dream, and – with the JPPI – The Essential Guide to October 7 and its Aftermath: Facts, Figures, History, now available in French and Hebrew. He has been included in Algemeiner’s J-100, one of the top 100 people "positively influencing Jewish life."
Identity and Education
How’s Your Soul?
Asking this three-word question won’t save society, but it’s a start.
New Publications in the Field
Opinion Articles
Opinion Articles
Israel is a nation of heroes – time for the gov’t to show courage too
We have now heard some testimony from passengers aboard the flight. It is frightening and disturbing, particularly as investigators are still trying to understand what exactly happened.
Opinion Articles
Opinion Articles
The ‘Jews vs Israelis’ lie: Right does not own Judaism, and the Left has not abandoned it
The Jewishness of those on the Left and in the political Center is no less real than that of right-wing Jews.
Opinion Articles
Opinion Articles
What three cultural giants can teach us about finding common ground
In a divided world, great culture can bring people together without asking them to share politics, faith, or history.
Opinion Articles
Opinion Articles
Their Grades, Our Responsibility
Instead of placing the full responsibility on teachers and the establishment, it is time to remember that reading, writing, curiosity, and a love of learning are part of the culture we create at home.
Opinion Articles
Opinion Articles
Israel’s Declaration: A Secular Sacred Text, Not a Legal Weapon
Those who cherish the Declaration must resist placing it in the legal arena.
Opinion Articles
Opinion Articles
The Perfect Storm: Why this Rosh Hashanah May Start Israel’s Most Challenging Year Yet
A convergence of trends and events – some global, some local – threatens to turn the Jewish New Year into a “perfect storm” for Israel, from elections and war to diplomacy and climate change.
Researchers Team
Ilay Boaz Yunayev
Bio
Ilay Boaz Yunayev holds a bachelor's degree in Philosophy and Jewish Thought from Shalem College and researches ethics, morality, and Zionism at the Orian Institute. He also serves on the Institute's educational division.
Focus Areas and Research
Rabbi Dr. Yitzhak Trachtingot
Bio
Rabbi Dr. Yitzhak Trachtingot is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Psychology at the Hebrew University. He heads the Jewish Education track at Herzog College and is a lecturer in psychology, education, and management.
He is part of JPPI's development team for civics courses for the Haredi state education system.
Focus Areas and Research
Tamar Ish Shalom
Bio
Tamar Ish Shalom, formerly the chief anchor of Channel 10 (later Channel 13) News for 11 years and more recently the host of Channel 13’s weekend news edition, has won several prestigious awards, including the B’nai B’rith Journalism Award for her documentary series on the evolving face of American Jewry and the Givat Haviva Award for advancing shared society between Jews and Arabs in Israel. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Jewish philosophy and a master’s degree in religious studies.
Tamar hosts a podcast on the topic of the impact of the October 7th events and the ongoing war on the world’s largest Jewish community outside Israel—the Jewish community of the United States.
Focus Areas and Research
Articles by Tamar Ish Shalom
Shira Tzachi
Bio
Shira Tsachi is an educator, group facilitator, and social entrepreneur. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in history and geography from Hebrew University, and is a doctoral student in Jewish philosophy at Bar-Ilan University.
Over the past decade, Shira has been involved in young leadership development and in the administration of a unique beit midrash (study framework) at Ein Prat: The Academy for Leadership, where she also served as Deputy CEO for Research, Development, and Learning.
Shira was one of the last students of the late Israel Prize laureate Prof. Eliezer Schweid, and is deeply engaged with his thought and pedagogical legacy. She teaches and lectures on Jewish history and Zionist thought in a variety of educational settings.
She is a former chair of Mirkam – Mixed Communities Network – and is currently a member of the Open University Council.
Focus Areas and Research
Articles by Shira Tzachi
Prof. Michal Bar-Asher Siegal
Bio
Prof. Michal Bar-Asher Siegal is a scholar of rabbinic Judaism. Her work focuses on aspects of Jewish-Christian interactions in the ancient world, and compares early Christian and rabbinic sources. She is a faculty member at the Goldstein-Goren Department of Jewish Thought, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and she was an elected member of the Israel Young Academy of Sciences. She was the Horace Goldsmith Visiting Professor in Judaic Studies at Yale University and the Gruss Visiting Associate Professor in Talmudic Civil Law Harvard Law School. Her first book is Early Christian Monastic Literature and the Babylonian Talmud (Cambridge University Press, 2013; winner of the 2014 Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award). Her second book is Jewish-Christian Dialogues on Scripture in Late Antiquity: Heretic Narratives of the Babylonian Talmud (Cambridge University Press, 2019; finalist, National Jewish Book Award, 2019).
Focus Areas and Research
Articles by Prof. Michal Bar-Asher Siegal
Prof. Gil Troy
Bio
Focus Areas and Research
Articles by Prof. Gil Troy
Dr. Haim Zicherman
Bio
Dr. Haim Zicherman, a senior lecturer at the Ono Academic College (OAC), is an expert in constitutional and property law and also researches the ultra-Orthodox society.
His book Black Blue-White (Yedioth Books, 2014) takes a broad-minded approach to understanding the ultra-Orthodox society in Israel. Until last year, Zicherman managed the ultra-Orthodox campuses of the OAC, where thousands of Haredi students – male and female – study. In recent years, Zicherman has coordinated the development and management of the "Israeli Identity" course available to all undergraduate students in Israel.
Focus Areas and Research
Articles by Dr. Haim Zicherman
Dr. Shuki Friedman
Director General
Bio
Dr. Shuki Friedman is the Director General of the Jewish People Policy Institute. He is a member of the Faculty of Law at the Peres Academic Center and formerly served as secretary of the Locker Committee for Examining the Defense Budget. He was also chairman of the government committee on the sanctions against Iran, and headed the international and foreign law department for the legal division of the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office.
Areas of expertise
The relationship of religion and state; processes of religionization; secular-religious-ultra-Orthodox relations; ultra-Orthodox employment; the defense budget; Islamic law; international law; the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement.
Focus Areas and Research
Geopolitics, Democracy, Religion and State, Identity and Education, Ultra-Orthodox, Israel-Diaspora Relations, Combating Antisemitism
Articles by Dr. Shuki Friedman
Prof. Yedidia Stern
President
Bio
Professor Stern is President of the Jewish People Policy Institute and a full professor in the Faculty of Law at Bar-Ilan University. He is an alumnus of the Kerem B'Yavneh hesder yeshiva (1973-1978); holds a law degree (summa cum laude) from Bar-Ilan University (1982), and a doctorate in corporate law from Harvard University (1986).
Stern has served as dean of Bar-Ilan University's Faculty of Law (1994-1998), and was a Senior Fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute (1989-2000). For a decade he served as the IDI's Vice President for Research.
His areas of expertise are corporate law (merger and acquisitions, corporate finance and corporate governance), and public law (constitutional law, religion and state, human rights, law and halacha or Jewish law). He has lectured and been a visiting scholar at universities abroad (including Harvard, Columbia, Brandeis, and Princeton), and was Distinguished University Professor at Monash University in Australia (2009-2011).
Stern has served as advisor to the Knesset Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee; has participated in numerous committees and public entities, among them the Commission of Inquiry on the Treatment of Residents of Gush Katif (2009); the National Committee for Civic Studies (2009-2011, committee chair); the Takana Forum for the prevention of sexual harassment in the religious community (founding member); the Government Committee for Equality in the Burden of Service (2012); the Committee for Regulating Governance in Higher Education (2014). He has served on the boards of multiple companies, including (currently) that of Bank Leumi.
Stern has been awarded the Zeltner Prize for Excellence in Legal Research (2009), and the Gorny Prize for Outstanding Activity in Public Law (2012).
Professor Stern has written and edited over twenty books; has published over fifty research articles in five languages; is the coeditor (with Professor Sagi) of the journal Democratic Culture (19 volumes to date); regularly publishes essays and articles in the Israeli and international press, and is interviewed by the Israeli and international media on issues of law and society, religion and state, Judaism and democracy, Jewish identity and Israeli culture.
Born in England (1955), married to Dr. Karen Friedman-Stern, father of eight.
Focus Areas and Research
Democracy, Religion and State, Identity and Education, Ultra-Orthodox, Israel-Diaspora Relations, Combating Antisemitism
Articles by Prof. Yedidia Stern
Dr. Shlomo Fischer
Senior Fellow
Bio
Dr. Shlomo Fischer teaches sociology in the School of Education at Hebrew University and at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.He is also currently a research fellow at the Van Leer Institute. His research interests include the nexus of religion, politics and class in Israel, contemporary religion and the sociology of the Jewish people. He has published extensively on radical religious Zionism and the West Bank settlers as well as on the Shas movement.
Fischer has worked in the field of education for the past 25 years. In the past 10 years he has worked in the field of religion, democracy and tolerance. He has edited (together with Adam Seligman) The Burden of Tolerance: Religious Traditions and the Challenge of Pluralism (Hebrew; HaKibbutz Hameuchad and the Van Leer Institute, 2007) which addresses these issues. From 1996-2007 he was the founder and Executive Director of Yesodot – Center for Torah and Democracy which works to advance education for democracy in the State-Religious school sector in Israel and was also one of the founders and is on the Board of the International Summer School for Religion and Public Life which is based in Boston, Mass. He is a graduate of the Mandel School for Educational Leadership in Jerusalem.
