| Israel’s Electoral Stalemate |
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Peter J. Haas, Ph.D. – Abba Hillel Silver Professor Emeritus of Jewish Studies |
Friday November 22, 2019
12:30-1:30 p.m.
Dampeer Room
Kelvin Smith Library*
Case Western Reserve University
Dear Colleagues:
Longtime participants in the “Friday Lunch” will know that, every few years, Professor Peter Haas has been kind enough to join us to discuss what is going on in Israeli politics. It has never been easy, but he really has his work cut out for him this time.
On the other hand, he only has to describe it, rather than solve it.
As this announcement was being written on November 17, Israel did not have a government. The election of September 17 created a situation in which Avigdor Liberman’s “secular, ultranationalist” Yisrael Beitenu, although it only has 8 of 120 seats in the Knesset, holds the balance of power between the two largest parties: Likud, with which Benjamin Netanyahu has become Israel’s longest-serving Prime Minister, and the Blue and White party of Benny Gantz, who served as Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces from 2011 to 2015 and whose new party fills a vacuum on the not-quite-left created by the collapse of the Labor Party over the past two decades. But Liberman cannot form a government with Netanyahu except by also allying with the ultraorthodox parties that he believes are grave threats to the state; and cannot ally with Gantz and form a majority without also allying with the Arab List parties that he believes are even graver threats. And an alliance of the two main parties hasn’t happened because Netanyahu’s serious legal problems make him unlikely to share power and Gantz refuses to share power with someone with such legal problems (whom he also seems not to trust very much).
Under Israeli law, Netanyahu had 28 days to form a government. He failed. Gantz was asked next, and his 28 days expire on November 20. So we will gather either to discuss the miracle that occurred after this statement was written, or whatever might happen next.
All best regards,
Joe White
Luxenberg Family Professor of Public Policy and Director, Center for Policy Studies
About Our Guest
Dr. Peter Haas received his B.A. from the University of Michigan in 1970 after which he attended Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, receiving ordination as a Reform rabbi in 1974. He served as an active U.S. Army chaplain for three years, remaining in the Army National Guard chaplain corp. for another 19 years. Upon completion of active duty, Rabbi Haas enrolled in the graduate program in religion at Brown University, earning a Ph.D. in Jewish Studies in 1980. He joined the faculty at Vanderbilt University in 1980, where he taught courses in Judaism, Jewish ethics, the Holocaust, Western religion, and the Middle East Conflict.
Dr. Haas moved to Case Western Reserve University in 2000 and was appointed chair of the Department or Religious Studies in 2003. He also served as a visiting professor at the Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies in Chicago, IL.
Dr. Haas has published several books and articles dealing with moral discourse and with Jewish and Christian thought after the Holocaust and has lectured in the United States, Germany, Italy, Belgium and Israel. His most recent book is on human rights in Judaism.
Dr. Haas stepped down as chair of the Department of Religious Studies in the summer of 2015 and fully retired in the summer of 2016. He is currently doing part-time volunteer work for the pastoral care department of South Pointe Hospital, as a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) for Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court and as a discussion leader for Books@Work for which he has led short story discussion groups in the VA and the veterans pod in Cuyahoga County jail.
Where We Meet
The Friday Public Affairs Lunch convenes each Friday when classes are in session, from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. Our programs are open to all and no registration is required. We usually meet in the Dampeer Room of Kelvin Smith Library.
* Kelvin Smith Library requires all entrants to show identification when entering the building, unless they have a university i.d. that they can magnetically scan. We are sorry if that seems like a hassle, but it has been Library policy for a while in response to security concerns. Please do not complain to the library staff at the entrance, who are just doing their jobs.
Parking Possibilities
The most convenient parking is the lot underneath Severance Hall. We regret that it is not free. From that lot there is an elevator up to street level (labeled as for the Thwing Center); it is less than 50 yards from that exit to the library entrance. You can get from the Severance garage to the library without going outside. Near the entry gates – just to the right if you were driving out – there is a door into a corridor. Walk down the corridor and there will be another door. Beyond that door you’ll find the entrance to an elevator which goes up to an entrance right inside the doors to Kelvin Smith Library.
Schedule of Friday Lunch Upcoming Topics and Speakers:
November 29: Thanksgiving break
December 6: Papers Please: Challenging Citizenship in the United States. With Cassandra Burke Robertson, John Deaver Drinko – Baker Hostetler Professor of Law and Director, Center for Professional Ethics. |
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November 18, 2019
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Upcoming Events
2020 CWRU MLK Convocation
A discussion with Khalil Gibran Muhammad, Ph.D., Professor of History, Race and Public Policy at the Harvard University Kennedy School and the Suzanne Young Murray Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies, Friday January 17, 2020, 12:45 p.m., Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation Ballroom at the Tinkham Veale University Center, 11038 Bellflower Rd, Cleveland, OH 44106.
Khalil Gibran Muhammad is professor of History, Race and Public Policy at the Harvard University Kennedy School and the Suzanne Young Murray Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies. He is the former Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a division of the New York Public Library and the world’s leading library and archive of global black history.
Muhammad’s scholarship examines the broad intersections of race, democracy, inequality and criminal justice in modern U.S. history. He is a contributor to a 2014 National Research Council study, The Growth of Incarceration in the United States: Exploring Causes and Consequences, and the author of The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America (Harvard), which won the John Hope Franklin Best Book award in American Studies. Muhammad has also appeared in several popular documentaries, lending his expertise to Ava DuVernay’s Netflix feature, 13th, Slavery By Another Name (PBS), and Forgotten Four: The Integration of Pro Football.
Governance of “Do-It-Yourself” Gene Editing
The Elena and Miles Zaremski Law Medicine Forum, a discussion with Maxwell J. Mehlman, J.D., Arthur E. Petersilge Professor of Law and Director of the Law-Medicine Center at the CWRU School of Law, Tuesday February 4, 2020, 12:00 p.m.-1:00 p.m., Moot Courtroom (A59), CWRU School of Law, 11075 East Blvd, Cleveland, OH 44106.
A large and highly heterogeneous group of individuals conducts genetic and genomic research outside of traditional corporate and academic settings. They can be an important source of innovation, but their activities largely take place beyond the purview of existing regulatory systems for promoting safe and ethical practices. Historically the gene-targeting technology available to non-traditional experimenters has been limited, and therefore they have attracted little regulatory attention. New techniques such as CRISPR-cas9, however, may create a need for alternate governance approaches. This lecture explores whether alternate governance approaches might be needed and, if so, what governance approaches would be most likely to enable non-traditional experiments to be conducted safely and ethically.
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