SIGNAL Group
Online Masterclasses
At the outset of Covid, SIGNAL Group launched a monthly lecture series, “The Masterclass,” offered by professors and experts in Israel Studies. This forum serves as an enrichment program that we expect to continue even after travel to China returns. Students and faculty from all partner universities are invited to join the monthly Masterclass.
SIGNAL Group Online Masterclasses 2023
Alan Makovsky
Alan Makovsky is a senior fellow for National Security and International Policy at American Progress. From 2001 to 2013, he served as a senior professional staff member on the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he covered the Middle East, Turkey, and other related issues. At the Washington Institute for Near East Policy—a private think tank where he worked from 1994 to 2001—Makovsky wrote widely on various Middle Eastern and Turkish topics. He also founded and directed the Washington Institute’s Turkey Research Program. At the State Department where he variously covered southern European affairs and Middle Eastern affairs for the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. He also served as the political advisor to Operation Provide Comfort in 1992 and as the special advisor to the special Middle East coordinator.
Rabbi Dr. Sharon Shalom
Rabbi Dr. Sharon Z. Shalom studied at Yeshivat Har Etzion in Alon Shvut. Rabbi Dr. Sharon Shalom has education in theology and philosophy. His M.A. thesis was on “Circumcision in the Beta Israel Community,” and his Ph.D. thesis was on “Judaism of Fate? A Case Study on Theology of the Ethiopian Jewish Community”. In addition to being a Senior Lecturer at Ono Academic College, he was a visiting scholar of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis University and also teaches at Bar Ilan and Tel Aviv Universities and is a member of Beit Hillel and Tzohar, an Orthodox Rabbinic organization. He is a graduate of the Hartman Institute’s “Rabbanut Yisraelit.” He is the Rabbi of the “Kdoshei Israel” synagogue, a community of Holocaust survivors. He serves as a Captain in the IDF Reserves.
Dr. Havatzelet Yahel
Dr. Havatzelet Yahel is a Lecturer at the Ben-Gurion Research Institute for the Study of Israel & Zionism at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Yahel completed her MPA at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government after receiving the Israel Wexner Fellowship for excellence in the public sector. Yahel is a member of the Israeli Bar Association; a board member of the International Committee of Regional Museums (ICOM) and editor of its newsletter; the Head of the Steering Committee for the establishment of a Cultural Heritage Center for the Galilee Bedouin; founder and board member of Hagshama Initiative for the Empowerment of Shibli-Um el-Ganem Bedouin Villages in the Galilee.
Dr. Emir Galilee
Dr. Emir Galilee is an associated scholar at The Ben-Gurion Research Institute for the Study of Israel & Zionism, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and a lecturer at Kaye academic collage, Beer Sheva. He has authored, both individually and collaboratively, a number of papers, in both Hebrew and English, focused on the geography and history of nomadic and Muslim societies in Israeli and Arab landscapes in historical perspectives. His areas of interest include historical, social and cultural geography; the social-cultural geography of ethnic and religious groups; the historical and social geography of nomadic and indigenous groups; tribalism in the Middle East; Arab landscapes in historical perspective; geography and literature, hiking trails and minorities.
SIGNAL Group Online Masterclasses 2022
Prof. Paula Kabalo - SIGNAL Group Academic Advisor
Professor Paula Kabalo is the former director of the Ben-Gurion Research Institute for the Study of Israel and Zionism at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Since 2017, she has also been the founding head of the Azrieli Center for Israel Studies, a complex of research hubs that aim to decode core themes related to the Israel phenomenon and the Zionist Idea. Prof. Kabalo's research focuses on the history of citizen associations and civil society in Israel and David Ben-Gurion's relations with various strata of society in Israel and the Jewish world. Currently, she is researching community organizations and local leadership in Israeli urban neighborhoods in an ISF grant project.
Prof. Ilan Troen
Prof. Troen is the Lopin Professor of Modern History, emeritus, and a Founding and Director of the Kreitman Foundation Fellowships at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. He is the founding Editor of Israel Studies, a Ben-Gurion Research Institute publication and published three times a year by Indiana University Press. Prof. Troen served as director of the Ben-Gurion Institute from 1983 to 1987 and remains closely associated with the institute.
Dr. Ori Goldberg
Dr. Ori Goldberg is an expert on the study of modern Iran and Shi'i revolutionary movements. Dr. Goldberg has published four books on the subject. Doctor Goldberg regularly publishes opinion columns on many Israeli news sites. Dr. Goldberg has lectured and spoken in a broad variety of academic institutions, from Tsinghua University in Beijing to the University of Oslo in Norway. Dr. Goldberg seves as a regular consultant to Israel's government and defense establishment, including organizations such as the Israeli Prime Minister's Office and the IDF.
Amit Elazar
Mr. Elazar is the co-founder of Olam Education and Cultural exchange. He has been working in China for more than 11 years and teaching various courses about Israel, Jewish culture and Hebrew language. Mr. Elazar is also an interpreter and consultant for high-level intergovernmental exchanges and multi-domain corporations and international companies, such as in the fields of business, culture, education, agriculture, high tech technologies and infrastructure projects.
Prof. Arieh Saposnik - SIGNAL Group Fellow
Professor Arieh Saposnik is an Associate Professor at the Ben-Gurion Institute for the Study of Israel and Zionism at Ben-Gurion University in the Negev. He is the recipient of fellowships from the America-Israel Cooperative Enterprise, National Foundation for Jewish Culture, University of Wisconsin Institute for Research in the Humanities, and the Institute for Humanities Research at Arizona State University. Saposnik is a historian of Zionism and Jewish nationalism. He is the author of Becoming Hebrew: The Creation of a Jewish National Culture in Ottoman Palestine, published by Oxford University Press.
SIGNAL Group Faculty Seminars
Since its inception in 2011, SIGNAL Group has aimed to increase mutual understanding and friendly relations between the Israeli and Chinese peoples. SIGNAL Group’s semi-annual Faculty Seminars advance this mission by bringing together leading Chinese and Israeli scholars and thinkers to study and discuss deeper aspects of the Israel-China relationship that are of mutual interest.
SIGNAL Group Faculty Seminar January 16, 2023
This seminar was dedicated to “Israel's Messenger (IM): A Jewish-Zionist Newspaper in Shanghai, 1904-41". Rich in 20th-century Jewish/Zionist and East Asian history and culture that are connected to Israel Studies, Modern Chinese History, Shanghai Studies, Jewish Studies, IM has never been the central focus of scholarly study. SIGNAL's Faculty Seminar filled in this scholarly lacuna by transforming IM into a focus for collaborative research between Israeli and Chinese researchers.
SIGNAL Group Academic Seminars
In 2013, SIGNAL Group launched its Academic Seminar program, sending Israeli professors to lecture at Chinese universities. These lectures enrich the Chinese students’ study experience and simultaneously add expertise to the Israel Studies Program’s (ISP) curriculum. The visit by Israeli professors is often the first time many students have encountered someone from Israel. As a result, the Academic Seminars offer students a more accurate, tangible understanding of the society they are studying.
Academic Lecture Series 2019
Lecturer Yisrael Ne'eman - SIGNAL Group Academic Advisor
Yisrael Ne’eman has a BA in Mideast Studies from Rutgers University and an MA in Jewish History from the University of Haifa. He has been a professional tour guide for the past 12 years, writes educational touring programs, and lectures both in Israel and abroad. Yisrael is a local council chairman of the Eshchar Community Village, where he lives with his wife and four children. Yisrael's recent book, Hamas Jihad: Antisemitism, Islamic World Conquest and the Manipulation of Palestinian Nationalism, was published by White Hart Publications and is now available on Amazon.
Prof. Meron Medzini - Distinguished SIGNAL Group Fellow
Prof. Meron Medzini is an Adjunct Associate Professor in Political Science at the Rothberg International School of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is also an Associate Fellow at the Truman Peace Institute of the Hebrew University, specializing in Israel’s relations with the nations of East Asia. Born in Jerusalem, after his military service in the Israeli Army, he was educated in the United States. He received his BA degree from City College of New York, MA, from Georgetown University and Ph.D. from Harvard University, where he majored in The History of Modern Japan and Modern China. He began his teaching career at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1965 and then taught for many years at Tel Aviv University courses on Modern Asia. He is the author of six books and some sixty articles in academic publications in Israel and overseas. His book – Golda, A Political Biography, won the Israel Prime Minister Prize in 2010.
Prof. Arieh Saposnik - SIGNAL Group Fellow
Professor Arieh Saposnik is an Associate Professor at the Ben-Gurion Institute for the Study of Israel and Zionism at Ben-Gurion University in the Negev. He is the recipient of fellowships from the America-Israel Cooperative Enterprise, National Foundation for Jewish Culture, University of Wisconsin Institute for Research in the Humanities, and the Institute for Humanities Research at Arizona State University. Saposnik is a historian of Zionism and Jewish nationalism. He is the author of Becoming Hebrew: The Creation of a Jewish National Culture in Ottoman Palestine, published by Oxford University Press.
