Jewish People Policy Institute

Jewish People Policy Planning Institute is a think tank established by the Jewish Agency, based in Jerusalem.

Dennis Ross, who serves on Obama's National Security Council, is co-chairman of its board.

Activities

According to its website JPPI’s activities are ‘action-oriented, placing special emphasis on identifying critical options and analyzing their potential impact on the future’.

It develops ‘professional strategic and long-term policy perspectives’ on what it considers to be ‘key factors that may endanger or enhance the future of the Jewish People’. It provides professionals, decision makers and global leaders with:

• Surveys and analyses of key situations and dynamics
• “Alerts” to emerging opportunities and threats
• Assessment of important current events and anticipated developments
• Strategic action options and innovative alternatives
• Policy option analysis
• Agenda setting, policy recommendations and work plan design

In August 2012 it listed its areas of interest as:

• Geopolitics
• Israel-Diaspora Relations
• American Jews
• European Jewry
• Islam & the Arab world
• De-Legitimization

People

Board of Directors

• Ambassador Dennis Ross, co-chairman of the board - previously sat on Obama's National Security Council and played a leading role in shaping US involvement in the Middle East, involved in peace negotiations in both the George W. Bush and Bill Clinton Administrations. Part of the founding group of JPPI and served as its first chairman. Currently he serves as a counselor at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He is the author of several books on the Middle East and US foreign policy.
• Ambassador Stuart Eizenstat, co-chairman of the board - served as US Ambassador to the EU, Under Secretary of State, Under Secretary of Commerce and Deputy Secretary of Treasury. He has also written a number of books.
• Irwin Cotler, board member - Canadian Minister of Justice and Attorney General from 2003 till 2006. Also of MEMRI, UN Watch and the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
• Leonid Nevzlin, Associate Chairman - former Rector of Moscow's University of the Humanities, Deputy Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of Parliament and President of the Russian-Jewish Congress. Established the NADAV Fund 'to support initiatives that strengthen Jewish Peoplehood'.
• Sami Friedrich - founder of consultancy company Shaldor, has also been on the board of the Jewish Agency and the Israel Democracy Institute
• Dan Halperin - according to a page on the Herzliya Conference (where Halperin has spoken), he served in the Ministry of Finance for over twenty years, as including as Deputy Director-General for International Affairs and as Economic Attach in Washington, D.C. and is also Chair of the Israel Festival Association and on the Board of Governors of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the board of Directors of Israeli National Airline El-Al.
• David Hatchwell Altaras - formerly of Goldman Sachs and now managing director of EXCEM Technologies, he is a member of the Spanish Chapter of the “Weizmann Institute”, the Spanish Board of the Peres Center for Peace and Friends of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Spain. Also a founding member and Vice-President of the Spain-Israel Chamber of Commerce and co-founder of ACOM (Acción para la Concordia en Oriente Medio) a Spain based pro-Israel public diplomacy platform established in 2007.
• Stephen H. Hoffman, Member and former president of the Board - President of the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland, the Mandel Foundation, the David and Inez Myers Foundation, and the Maltz Foundation. Served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of the United Jewish Communities. In 2004, he was appointed by President George W. Bush to serve on the United States delegation to the Conference on Anti-Semitism, held in Berlin, Germany, by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). He is Founder and Co-Chair of the Secure Communities Network, a national US project also involving groups like the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
• Alan Hoffmann
• Rabbi Vernon Kurtz
• Morlie Levin
• Glen Lewy
• Judit Bokser Liwerant
• Isaac Molho
• Steven B. Nasatir
• Avi Pazner
• Jehuda Reinharz
• John Ruskay
• Doron Shorrer
• Gerrald Silverman - Gerrald (Jerry) Silverman
• Ted Sokolsky
• Alan Solow - former chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations
• Michael H. Steinhardt - co-founder of Birthright Israel
• Aharon Yadlin - former Israeli politician and father of Amos Yadlin, ex-head of Israeli military intelligence and director of the Institute of National Security Studies

Fellows

• Avinoam Bar-Yosef, President and Founding Director - previously of Ma'ariv newspaper and Senior Advisor to the Chair of the Jewish Agency Sallai Meridor..
• Prof. Yehezkel Dror, Founding President - Professor of Political Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, a member of the Club of Rome, he served as a senior staff member of the RAND Corporation, Senior Advisor in the Offices of Israeli Prime Ministers and Ministers of Defense; Fellow at the Berlin Institute for Advanced Study and Science Center; and senior professor at the European Institute of Public Administration, Maastricht.
• General Aharon Ze'evi Farkash, Former President - previously head of Aman, Israel's military intelligence agency. He is also Chairman of Public Management of the Ben Yakir Youth Village, as well as an active member of the Ghetto Fighters’ House Friends.
• Prof. Suzanne Last Stone, Academic Counselor - also a Senior Fellow at the Shalem Center and Designated Chair, Department of Liberal Studies, at Shalem College
• Ita Alcalay, Project Manager - previously worked at the Finance Minister's Bureau and the Foreign Ministry.
• Ambassador Avi Gil, Senior Fellow - formerly Director General of Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and 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 was involved in negotiations that led to the Oslo Accords and the peace treaty with Jordan. Also a 'close advisor to President Shimon Peres'
• Brig. Gen. (Res.) Michael Herzog, Senior Fellow - heads JPPI's confronting de-legitimization project. Former head of the IDF's strategic planning division, held senior positions in the office of Israel's minister of defense and was the chief of staff of Minister Ehud Barak. Son of Chaim Herzog, former president of Israel, he is also the Milton Fine International [Military] Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
• Dov Maimon, Senior Fellow - working on a 'Grand Strategy of the Jewish People toward Islam' and leads the Institute's activities in Europe.
• Prof. Steven Popper, Senior Fellow - a Senior Economist at the RAND Corporation and Professor of Science and Technology Policy in the Pardee RAND Graduate School. He is also director of RAND's Israel Initiative. He has carried out research for the OECD, the World Bank, several non-US governments and the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy, including 'evaluations of federal R&D portfolios relevant to the Global War on Terror'.
• Dr. Shalom Salomon Wald, Senior Fellow - worked at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) between 1964 and 2001 and was Head of the OECD/DSTI Biotechnology Unit. Joined JPPI in 2002 and worked on Jewish/Israeli relations with China, among other topics. Currently studying 'India-Israel-Jewish People links'.
• Jonathan D. Sarna, Senior Fellow - Professor of American Jewish History at Brandeis University.
• Dr. Shlomo Fischer, Fellow - sociologist at Hebrew University and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Also a research fellow at the Van Leer Institute. He has published extensively on radical religious Zionism and the West Bank settlers as well as on the Shas movement.
• Shmuel Rosner, Fellow - author, columnist and Senior Political Editor for the Jewish Journal, writes weekly for The International Herald Tribune, New York Times and for Israel’s Maariv Daily. Previously a columnist for The Jerusalem Post, and Chief U.S. Correspondent for Haaretz. Has also written for Foreign Policy and Commentary.
• Antony Korenstein, Fellow - formerly of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC).
• Inbal Hakman, Fellow - Ph.D. student at the Federmann School of Public Policy and Government, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and teaching assistant at the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy.
• Arielle Kandel, Fellow - Joined JPPI in 2012, works on the research project led by Dr. Solomon Wald focused on relations between India, Israel and the Jewish people.
• Dr. Gedaliah Afterman, Fellow - former policy analyst for the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) in Melbourne, Political Correspondent for the Australian Jewish News and has worked for the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
• Rami Tal, Publications Editor - former news editor and Washington correspondent at Yediot Acharonot newspaper.
• Nadia Ellis, Associate Fellow - Works on JPPI's delegitimization of Israel project, especially on university campuses and writing a Ph.D. about the use of the word 'delegitimization' in political discourse at Tel Aviv University.
• Rabbi Dr. Yehudah Mirsky, Fellow - worked as an aide to Senators Bob Kerrey and Al Gore and served in the Clinton Administration as a Presidential appointee in the US State Department's human rights bureau. Has written on politics, culture and religion for The Economist, New Republic, Washington Post and many other publications. Also a fellow of the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute.
• Yogev Karasenty, Fellow - founder and board member of 'several initiatives aiming to promote Israel Diaspora discourse' lecturer on Jewish sociological and demographical trends. Co-writer of the new paradigm for Israel Diaspora relationships (commissioned by the Israeli Government).

Contact

• Address: Givat Ram Campus, Hebrew University, P.O.Box 39156, Jerusalem 91391
• Tel: 972-2-5633356
• Fax: 972-2-5635040
• Website: http://jppi.org.il
• Email: info@jppi.org.il