Professor David N. Myers; A Historian Reflects on Israel’s Past & Futrue

On Thursday, March 28, 2019, 7:30 PM at Temple B’nai Abrham, David N. Myers, Ph.D, Professor of Jewish History, UCLA and Board President, New Israel Fund will reflect on Israel’s Past and Future. Free and open to the community.

Israel was founded 70 years ago, but its future is as unknowable today as it was in 1948. Israel’s army is the most powerful in the region. Recent governments have sought new strategic alliances, making friends with former enemies and alienating longstanding allies.Its economy is one of the most robust in the world, even as economic disparity widens. The Occupation, majority-minority relations, a serious housing shortage, innumerable matters of “church and state” and other domestic matters fuel ongoing tumult. The struggle to remain both democratic and Jewish grows more and more complex.

What is Israel’s future? Prof. David Myers, a frequent visitor to Temple B’nai Abraham, believes that to understand Israel’s future, it is important to understand its past. Author of numerous definitive works on Jewish and Israeli history, and a frequent visitor to Israeli universities and commentator on contemporary Israel, Myers will explore what Israel’s history can teach us about its future, the future that which we can know, and the future for which we hope.

Currently the Board President of the New Israel Fund, Prof. David Myers has been on the faculty of UCLA since 1991, and had served as both Chair of its Department of History and Director of its Center for Jewish Studies. One of his generation’s most respected Jewish historians, Myers is the author or editor of fifteen books, has written hundreds of scholarly and popular articles, and has lectured at universities throughout North America, as well as in France, Germany, Russia, The Netherlands, and, of course, Israel. This lecture is supported by the Bloom Family Memorial Lecture Fund.

Prof. Myers photo by Scarlett Freund