Natan Golan
A child of Hungarian Holocaust survivors who escaped to England after WW2, Natan was born and raised in London. He came to Israel at the age of sixteen through “Youth Aliya” and completed his high school at the Yemin Orde youth village near Haifa. After concluding his B.A. degree at Bar Ilan University, Natan served for four years (including the first Lebanon War) in the IDF Intelligence Corps. He holds the rank of Major and serves in the reserves of the IDF Spokesman’s Unit.
In 2006, Natan fulfilled a lifelong ambition by relocating from Jerusalem to Kfar Veradim, a community village in the Western Galilee, from where he operates his international consultation operation. During the second Lebanon War, he co-founded “Galila” – the Northern Galilee Development Foundation, a non-profit association and initiated a range of programs that have enhanced the remote northern Galilee communities in education, community infrastructure, social welfare and leadership development.
Natan is married to Yael and he has three children, his daughters Dina and Talia and his son Aviel who is completing his military service in an IDF combat unit.
Murray S. Greenfield
Murray S. Greenfield was born in New York and arrived in Israel as a volunteer crew member of the blockade-runner ship, "Hatikvah," in 1947. In 1987, he co-authored the book, The Jews' Secret Fleet, an account of the contribution of American volunteers in the effort to secure Jewish immigration to Israel during the pre-state struggle for independence. Murray lives in Tel Aviv where he is a business consultant. He also serves as a member of the board of the Diaspora Museum.
Avraham Infeld
Avraham Infeld has invested a lifetime building Jewish identity and strengthening the State of Israel. The founder and director of a succession of innovative educational institutions, Avraham continues to serve Hillel as President Emeritus.
In the 1970s, Avraham founded Melitz, a non-profit educational service institution that fosters Jewish identity rooted in a pluralistic understanding of Jewish life and the centrality of Israel. He also served as chairman of Arevim; director of the Birthright Israel planning process; founding chairman of San Francisco Federation’s Amutot in Israel; and chairman of the Board of Israel Experience, Ltd., an independent company created by the Jewish Agency.
Avraham has sought to promote Jewish values among Israelis as president and chairman of Israel Forum, a nationwide volunteer movement he helped found in 1990. He has conducted breakthrough work in bringing together secular and religious Israelis as director general of the Shalom Hartman Institute and director general of Gesher Education Affiliates.
A native of South Africa, Avraham immigrated to Israel in 1959. He is married to Ellen Infeld, originally from Woodbridge, N.J., and they share four children and 12 grandchildren. He is a graduate of the Hebrew University in Bible and Jewish History, and of Tel Aviv University’s Law School. In 2005, he was awarded the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s prestigious Samuel Rothberg Prize for Jewish Education, the first specialist in informal Jewish education to be so honored. He was given an honorary doctorate by Muhlenberg College in May 2006 for his contribution to the field of education.
Clive Lipchin
Clive serves as the director of the Arava Institute’s Center for Environmental Policy and Research where he oversees research projects, workshops and conferences that focus on transboundary environmental problems facing Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority. He has been involved in a number of regional projects over the years such as on assessing impacts on the declining water level of the Dead Sea. This project was conducted jointly with Palestinian and Jordanian partners and funded by the European Union.
Currently, he is part of a research team working on the World Bank sponsored feasibility study of the Red Sea-Dead Sea conduit. He is conducting research on the environmental and social impact assessment of the proposed project.
He is also a member of the Arava Institute faculty where he teaches courses in sustainable development, water management, scientific research methodology and culture and environment interactions.
Rabbi Michael Melchior
Rabbi Michael Melchior comes from Denmark where for seven generations his family members have served as Chief Rabbis. He received rabbinic ordination at Yeshivat HaKotel in Jerusalem in 1980 and returned to Scandinavia to serve as Rabbi of the Norwegian Jewish Community.
In 1999, he was elected to the Knesset as the Meimad Party's representative and appointed to Ehud Barak’s Cabinet as Minister for Israeli Society and the World Jewish Community. He served in successive governments as Deputy Foreign Minister, Deputy Minister of Education, and Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister's office. From 2006 to 2009, he served as Chairman of the Knesset committee for Education, Culture and Sports and the Knesset Caucus on the Environment. Rabbi Melchior became been one of Israel’s leading legislators initiating and completing major legislative reforms in the areas of education, children’s rights, environment, and social justice.
Today, Rabbi Melchior is no longer serving in the Knesset. He has turned his focus to leading the civil society movements that he helped build over the last decade. Rabbi Melchior launched Moe'tzet Yachad, a forum which promotes dialogue and understanding between different strands in Israeli society; Meitarim, a network of pluralistic Jewish schools whose open, democratic ethos enables religious and secular students to study their heritage together; the Citizen's Accord Forum, which campaigns for coexistence between Arabs and Jews in Israel and the correction of injustices against Israel's Arab minority; and the Mosaica Center for Interreligious Cooperation, which is devoted to expanding and deepening inter-religious dialogue in the Middle East on a grassroots basis.
Rabbi Melchior was the founding chairman of the Birthright/Taglit steering committee, and he has brought his religious leadership and political influence to bear on many other issues, including activity on behalf of Agunot and efforts to resolve the problems of conversion which effect Jewish communities around the world. He also serves as the Rabbi of a dynamic Orthodox synagogue in Jerusalem and is actively involved in the Norwegian Jewish Community, where he still holds the honorary position of Chief Rabbi.
Rabbi Melchior is married to Hanna, an occupational therapist, and is the father to five children.
Dalia Rabin
Dalia Rabin currently serves as the Chairperson of the Yitzhak Rabin Center for Israel Studies, a thriving national institute dedicated to ensuring that the legacy of former Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Yitzhak Rabin continues to impact Israeli society through experiential educational programming, a national archive and a museum.
Before leading the Rabin Center, Dalia was a member of the Israeli Government from 1999-2002. She was elected to the Knesset on the Center Party ticket in 1999 and acted as Chairperson of the Ethics Committee. She also served on the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee; the Committee for the Advancement of the Status of Women; the State Control Committee; and the Committee for the Advancement of the Status of the Child. In March 2001, Dalia was appointed Deputy Minister of Defense. She resigned in July 2002 to head the Rabin Center.
Prior to her election to the Knesset, Dalia, an attorney by profession, served as the legal advisor of the professional associations of the General Federation of Labor (the "Histadrut"). She also served for fourteen years in the Tel Aviv District Attorney’s Office in the Civil Division, specializing in Labor Law.
Dalia holds an LLB from Tel Aviv University and has two children, Yonatan and Noa.
Wendy Singer
Wendy Senor Singer is the Director of AIPAC's Jerusalem Office. In this capacity, she meets daily with senior Israeli government officials in order to assess political developments in Israel. She maintains contact with members of Israel’s opposition as well with independent analysts, pollsters, American diplomats stationed in Israel, and Palestinian representatives.
Ms. Singer and her colleagues coordinate the visits of several dozen Members of the House and Senate to Israel every year (on AIEF missions).
Prior to making aliya in October 1994, Wendy served for five years as a registered lobbyist for AIPAC on Capitol Hill.
Ms. Singer has five years of foreign policy experience on Capitol Hill – from 1987-1990 as Foreign Policy Advisor to Congressman Henry Waxman, a California Democrat. Prior to that, she worked in the Senate – first for Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, and then for Senator Carl Levin of Michigan.
She is a graduate of Brandeis University and today lives in Jerusalem with her husband and three daughters.
Avner Talmon
Founder, CEO and owner of Capernaum Vista Farms and the Golan Heights Olive Oil Mill, Avner was also CEO of a company of inventors and manufacturers of advanced liquid control tech and other infrastructures.
After serving as an officer in the Israel Defense Forces during the first War in Lebanon in 1982, Avner became a Brigade Commander in the Paratroop Reserves. Other positions include chief comptroller in the Ministry of Defense and main desk logistics commander in the IDF's operational high command.
Avner achieved his B.A. in history of the Middle East, and also has a MBA. His wife Smadar has a Masters degree in Social Work. His son Omri, is a lawyer and a captain in the IDF reserves. His daughter Neta Lee in currently in active military service, while his youngest daughter Doron is a student at the Rimon Music school.
Sam Philipe
An Israeli born sculptor and a fifth generation Jerusalemite. Has been a designer and sculptor for 25 years. In 1989, he opened his first studio in Jerusalem. Every sculpture created by Sam Philipe is the result of months of work- from the stage of the hand- carved wax figuring to the final polished product cast in precious metal. Inspired by the city of Jerusalem and the bible, his work includes functional and ritual art items, as well as purely artistic creations. He is considered to be the most prolific Jewish artist, specializing in the sculpting of status depicting scenes from both the Old and New Testament. In many cases he uses the stone from the actual places where biblical events took place.
Tom Sawicki
Tom Sawicki joined the Israel Office of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in 1997, where he currently serves as the Director of Programming. In this position he reports regularly on political, strategic, and other developments in the Middle East to the National Office in Washington; remains in constant contact with key political, academic and media leaders in Israel; and hosts missions to the region by Members of the U.S. Congress and other groups.
Before joining AIPAC he served as Director of Resource Development at the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.
Sawicki was one of the founding staff members of The Jerusalem Report Magazine – Israel's only English-language news magazine – where he served as senior editor and senior writer in the years 1990 – 1996. In the years 1980 – 1987 he worked on the foreign relations staff of Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek.
He holds a Master’s degree in Journalism from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and a BA in history and sociology from Columbia College.
Sawicki was born in Poland in 1951; he emigrated with his family to the U.S in 1969, and came to live in Israel in 1979.