Cohort 3:
Lior Birger, “Families under Pressure: Ecological Understanding of Eritrean Asylum Seekers Parenting in a New Country - The Case of Germany and Israel” (Prof. Mimi Ajzenstadt and Dr. Yochay Nadan, School of Social Work, HUJ; Prof. Kristin Drenkhahn, Law, FUB)
Michal Cotler-Wunsch, “In Defense of Free Speech: Creating or Re-affirming the Distinction between Human Rights and Civil Liberties – A Comparative Study” (Prof. Barak Medina, Law, HUJ; Prof. Eckart Klein, Law, Potsdam)
Ofir Hadad, “Policies towards "Threatened" Palestinians” (Prof. Menahem Hofnung, Political Science, HUJ; Prof. Uwe Flick, Political and Social Sciences, FUB)
Merav Kaddar, “Urban Agency and Artistic Interventions as Transitional Justice Mechanisms in Contested Urban Spaces” (Prof. Avner de Shalit, Political Science, HUJ; Prof. Helmut Aust, Law, FUB)
Habtom Mehari, “The Struggle for Human Rights and Dignity in Post-Independence Eritrea: The Experience of Eritreans in Diaspora” (Dr. Yael Berda, Sociology, HUJ; Prof. Kristin Drenkhahn, Law, FUB)
Bana Shoughry, “Islamic Law, Gender and Human Rights under the Jewish- Democratic State” (Prof. Michael Karayanni, Law, HUJ; Prof. Schirin Amir-Moazami, Islamic Studies, FUB)
Rachel Zeliger, “Restrictions on the Inflow of Cross-border Philanthropy, Globalization and Freedom of Association” (Prof. Tomer Broude, Law and International Relations, HUJ; Prof. Heike Krieger, Law, FUB)
Postdoctoral fellows:
Dr. Ebtesam Barakat (Bar Ilan University), “How Educated Druze Women Handle the Main Labor Market”
Dr. Natalie Davidson (Tel Aviv University), “The Changing Definition of Torture: A Socio-Legal Inquiry”
Introductory seminar in Jerusalem for each incoming cohort
Each fall, the Minerva Center for Human Rights brings together the entire new incoming cohort of HR-UP Doctoral and Postdoctoral Fellows (including those in Berlin) for an intensive 2-week Introductory Seminar in Jerusalem. The aims of the seminar are to introduce the new cohort to HR-UP and its interdisciplinary approach; to enable the Fellows from the two universities to become acquainted with one another, and with the HR-UP faculty and staff, on both a personal and academic level, and to continue building connections that will form the basis of a fruitful collaboration throughout their involvement with the program; to allow each student to present his or her research to the group, and provide a forum for discussion and feedback from the other students, their advisors and researchers; to give the FUB students a first opportunity for personal acquaintance with their HUJI supervisors; to acquaint the students from FUB with Jerusalem and Israel; and to expose the students from both universities to a variety of human rights issues “in the field”. These goals are achieved through a demanding schedule of lectures, discussions, site visits and field trips with leading academics and civil society organizations.
On November 12-25, 2016, the Minerva Center held the intensive Introductory Seminar for the 3rd cohort of HR-UP, comprising 17 new Doctoral and Postdoctoral Fellows. Each of the new Fellows presented their research plans and methodologies to the group, and benefitted from numerous guest lectures and symposia, discussing diverse substantive and methodological issues with more than 20 HUJ faculty members as well as several faculty members from FUB. The program also included a number of thematic tours (Yad Vashem, East Jerusalem, the asylum-seeker community in Tel Aviv, unrecognized Bedouin villages in the South) followed by critical discussion of the issues they highlighted. The Introductory Seminar also included a special event at the Jerusalem Cinematheque for the HR-UP students and faculty, with a special screening of the documentary "Soft Vengeance: Albie Sachs and the New South Africa" – on the Jewish ANC lawyer in South Africa who survived an assassination attempt by the Apartheid regime and eventually became a key author of the country's post-Apartheid constitution and a Justice of the first Constitutional Court of South Africa. The evening also included a discussion with the film's director, Abby Ginzberg – and the screening of an interview that Albie Sachs recorded specially for this Minerva Center event and for the HR-UP students, on lessons from South Africa for Israel/Palestine.
Speakers at the HR-UP introductory seminar included:
Prof. Menahem Hofnung, Department of Political Science, HUJI, “Political and Social Introduction to Israel”
Dr. Amos Goldberg, Dept. of Jewish History and Contemporary Judaism, HUJI, "The Understanding and Portrayal of the Holocaust in Israel”
Prof. Tomer Broude, HR-UP Co-Director, HUJI, “Interdisciplinarity and Human Rights”
Prof. Moshe Sluhovsky, Head of School of History and Dept. of History, HUJI, “Migration and Transplantation of Gay Lifestyle from Berlin to Palestine in the 1930s”
Prof. Alon Harel, Faculty of Law “The Development of LGBT Rights in Israel”
Prof. Hillel Cohen, Dept. of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, Head of the Cherrick Center for the Study of Zionism, the Yishuv & the State of Israel, HUJI “Jerusalem and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict”
Adv. Hassan Jabareen, Founder and Director of the NGO Adalah – The Legal
Center for Arab Minority Rights; Prof. Barak Medina, Faculty of Law, HUJI, “The Arab Minority in Israel”
Prof. Cesare Romano, Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, “The Right to Benefit from Scientific Research”
Summer school in Berlin
Another important element of HR-UP is the 10-day summer school held annually in Berlin, in which all cohorts and many program faculty from both HUJ and FUB (as well as the HR-UP International Advisory Board) participate. The summer school includes presentations by each of the Doctoral and Postdoctoral Fellows, lectures and workshops with top guest speakers, and site visits and field trips focusing on local and global human rights issues. The 2017 summer school was held on July 9–20, with the participation of all three cohorts of young researchers (almost 40 in total), in addition to faculty from both institutions and prominent guest speakers. An especially significant contingent of Hebrew University HR-UP faculty attended the summer school this year: Mimi Ajzenstadt, Einat Albin, Christian Baden, Avishai Benish, Tomer Broude, Avner De-Shalit, Badi Hasisi, Menachem Hofnung, Mordechai Kremnitzer, Galia Press-Barnatan and Yael Ronen.
Guest speakers at the HR-UP biweekly colloquia
Leading experts from diverse human rights-related fields are invited to present and discuss their work with the HR-UP students in the biweekly colloquia. Thanks to the videoconference technology, the speakers may be in either Berlin or Jerusalem, and the students from both universities participate in the discussion.
Guest speakers at the HR-UP biweekly colloquia hosted in Jerusalem by the HUJ Center in 2016-2017 included:
Prof. Patrick Macklem, University of Toronto (HUJI) "The Practice and Purpose of Human Rights"
Prof. Ivana Jelic, University of Montenegro (FUB) "International Minority Rights Protection, with Special Emphasize on European System"
Prof. Deborah Hellman, University of Virginia (HUJI) “Indirect Discrimination”
Prof. Mark Goodale, University of Lausanne (HUJI) "Human Rights in an Anthropological Key"
Prof. Leif Wenar, King's College London (HUJI) "Human Rights, Popular Sovereignty and the Oil Curse"
Prof. Basak Cali, Koח University Istanbul (FUB) "Studying Human Rights as an International Legal Project"
Prof. Matthias Mahlmann, University of Zurich (FUB) “Current Human Rights Revisionism and the Foundations of Human Rights”
Prof. Steffen Hindelang, Free University of Berlin (HUJI) "Human Rights & Investment Tribunals"
Prof. James Anaya, Colorado University (HUJI) “The Rights of Indigenous Peoples“
Prof. Philippe Sands, University College London (HUJI) “The Relationship Between Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide”
Prof. Samantha Besson, Freiburg University (HUJI) “Protecting Economic Rights as International Legal Human Rights”
Prof. Catharine MacKinnon, University of Michigan Law School (HUJI) “Rape Redefined”
Prof. Ingrid Robeyns, Utrecht University (FUB) "Human Rights and Human Capabilities".
Prof. Yossi Dahan, College of Law and Business (FUB) "On International Labor Rights and shared Responsibility"
Prof. Eric Posner, University of Chicago (FUB) "The Twilight of Human Rights Law"