Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies

The Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies is "an interdisciplinary research center devoted to the study of the modern history and contemporary affairs of the Middle East and Africa". It is part of Tel Aviv University's School of History.

Activities

The claims that it does not take positions or recommend policies but only "seeks to inform civil society and promote dialogue on the complexities of the ever-changing Middle East" through research, publications, conferences, documentary collections, and public service, and in this way help to "advance peace through understanding".

Research focuses on the Arab world (including North Africa), Turkey, and Iran, with an emphasis on modern history and contemporary affairs.

It hosts an annual 'TAU Workshop on Israel and the Middle East' (formerly held at the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Regional and International Studies) which involves "an intensive 12-day academic workshop and travel program that focuses on the history of the Arab-Israeli Conflict and on contemporary issues related to Israel and the broader Middle East".

The centre's Arabic press archive is "one of the largest and most comprehensive collections of modern and contemporary Arabic-language newspapers in the world".

Recent conferences convened by the centre have focused on topics like the resilience of monarchy in the Middle East, the shifting alignments of Islamic movements, the historic role of Jewish scholars in the study of Islam and the politics of identity among Israel’s Arabs.

Maj. Gen. Amos Gilad delivered the 201 annual memorial lecture in memory of Moshe Dayan.

History

The Center's origins lie in the Reuven Shiloah Institute, first established in 1959 under the auspices of the Israel Oriental Society. In 1965, the Shiloah Institute was incorporated into Tel Aviv University. In 1983, the University established the Moshe Dayan Center, which combined the Shiloah Institute and documentation units dealing with the Middle East.

Affiliations

• Washington Institute for Near East Policy has long-standing academic ties to the Moshe Dayan Center. Many scholars have been visiting fellows at WINEP.
• Council on Foreign Relations, a New York think tank.
• Royal Institute for International Affairs, also known as Chatham House, a British policy institute.

People

• Prof. Uzi Rabi, current director
• Prof. Asher Susser, Senior Research Fellow
• Dr. Mira Tzoreff, Research Fellow, who spoke at the Twelfth Herzliya Conference on 'The Rise of Political Islam Across the Middle East: Arab Spring or Islamist Winter'
• Martin Kramer, member of board of governors and former director.
• Dore Gold, former senior research associate at the centre.

Founders

S. Daniel Abraham | Mordechai Ben Porat | Charles Bronfman | Joseph Ciechanover | Lester Crown | Michel Fribourg | Bernard Gitter | Guilford Glazer | Kemal GŸrŸz | Haim Israeli | Ludwig Jesselson | Elie Kedourie | Senator E. Leo Kolber | Naphtali Lavie | Bernard Lewis | Moshe Many | Herman Merkin | Harvey M. Meyerhof | Itamar Rabinovich | Raphael Recanati | Baron Edmond de Rothschild | Zalman Shoval | Shabtai Teveth | Dan Tolkowsky | Joy Ungerleider-Mayerson | The Hon. Cyrus Vance |

Board of Governers

Joseph Ciechanover (Chair) | Shalom Abarbanel | Uri Bar-Ner | Mordechai Ben Porat | Ronald Cohen | Boleslav Goldman | Joseph Klafter | Martin Kramer | Naphtali Lavie | Itamar Rabinovich | Moshe Raviv | Oudi Recanati | [[Aharon Shai] | Shimon Shamir | Zalman Shoval | Asher Susser | Mordechai Tamarkin | Shabtai Teveth | Dan Tolkowsky | Eyal Zisser

International Board of Overseers

Lester Pollack (Chair) | Joel Mandel (Vice Chair) | Gaby Brill | John Bussel | Alexander Gertner | Ted Ginsberg | Diane Glazer | Guilford Glazer | Stanley Gold | Harvey Rothenberg | Alan Schwartz | Mark Siegel and Christina Siegel | Jacqueline Simkin | Amos Sochaczevski | Michael Sorkin | Alan Topchik | Edwin Wulfsohn |

Funding

The Center is funded by Tel Aviv University and by an endowment, research grants, and contributions.

It also receives donations from the United States via the American Friends of Tel Aviv University.

Publications

The centre produces a peer-reviewed academic journal called Sharqiyya which is published semi-annually with the Middle East & Islamic Studies Association of Israel. It also has a bi-monthly online publication called Tel Aviv Notes, a monthly podcast called Diwaniyya, and a cultural blog called Zawiyya. It produces a monthly e-newsletter called Iqtisadi: Middle East Economy containing analysis of Middle Eastern markets and key economic players. It also issues a biannual bulletin on the centre's activities in spring and autumn.

Recent faculty publications include:

• Asher Susser, Israel, Jordan, & Palestine: The Two-State Imperative, (Brandeis University Press, 2011).
• Ofra Bengio and Meir Litvak, The Sunna and Shi‘a in History: Division and Ecumenism in the Muslim Middle East, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011)
• Itamar Rabinovich, The View from Damascus: State, Political Community and Foreign Relations in Modern Contemporary Syria (Vallentine Mitchell, 2011)
• Co-eds Uzi Rabi and Yoel Guzansky, The Gulf States: Between Iran and the West, (Hebrew), (Moshe Dayan Center and Institute for National Strategic Studies, 2012)
• Ed. Daniel Zissenwine, Nationalism, Secularism, and Religion in the Middle East (Hebrew), (Moshe Dayan Center, 2012)

Contact

The Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies

Tel Aviv University

Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv 69978 Israel

Phone: +972-3-6409646 or +972-3-6409100

Email: dayancen@post.tau.ac.il

Website: http://www.dayan.org

Resources

• Moshe Dayan Center podcasts