Invited Speakers

Rami Benbenishty is a Professor emeritus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and at Bar Ilan University, Israel. He got his Ph.D. in Social Work and Psychology from the University of Michigan. 

His main areas of interest are the safety, welfare, and wellbeing of children around the world. He is studying children and youth both in community normative settings, such as schools, and in out of home placements, such as foster homes and residential care. He investigates and tries to improve decision processes that lead to referral to protective services, removal of children from their biological families, and their reunification thereafter. 

With his colleague, Prof. Anat Zeira from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem he has led multiple studies on youths and young adults in care and after leaving care. Their work is having impact on the policies and services developed for care leavers. 

Benbenishty has developed a conceptual, methodological, and technological framework for monitoring processes and outcomes in human services. This framework was implemented in foster care services in the US and is being utilized to monitor school violence and climate in schools, districts, and at the national level. 

With his colleague, Ron Avi Astor from USC, he is studying multiple aspects of school climate and victimization. They have conducted a series of studies that examined school violence from an ecological perspective. The insights gained from this work contributed to an ecological theory of school violence in evolving contexts and to consultation with several educational systems around the world. 

Dr. Benbenishty's work has been recognized in Israel and abroad. He received Israel's EMET prize, and the Society for Social Work Research Distinguished Career Achievement Award. Recently he became a fellow of the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare.

Prof. Yuval Elbashan is Ono's Dean of the Faculty of Law, which is Israel's largest law faculty.  He joined Ono, first as faculty and then as Dean of Social Development responsible for managing the institution as a multicultural campus, responsible for the development and management of the institution's social initiatives and the structuring of social responsibility as part and parcel of the professionalism of the institution's students in all areas of study (law, accounting, occupational therapy, rehabilitation, health professions, management and business administration and music). 

Prof. Elbashan is an Israeli author, community lawyer, respected academic and esteemed social activist with record of grass roots and entrepreneurial establishment of programs dedicated to social justice. He served as both Senior Lecturer at the Hebrew University Faculty of Law and Director of Citizen Rights Centers of YEDID – The Association for Community Empowerment. He is the author of nine books – including a book of poems "Yesterday Finished trimming the bushes" (1994), " Strangers in the Realm of the Law" – the access to justice in Israel (2005) a novel "Forever Flora" (Yedioth Books, 2009) which won critical acclaim and sold over 35,000 copies to date; a children's book "Peanut the mouse and the cruel glue" ( 2010); a novel for young people of all ages "Sifu – Unfinished Story" (2011) and the novel "The Masada Case." He served from 1987 as an officer in elite unit of the Israeli Intelligence Corps and is now a major in the IDF reserves. Prof. Elbashan served as an advisor to Israel Defense Ministers Amir Peretz and Ehud Barak on social issues. Contributing editor to Ma'ariv's weekly column dedicated to social issues. He established and directed the Human Rights Unit at the Academic College of Law and the Clinical Center for Social Responsibility and Human Rights at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He earned a LL.B in Law from Tel Aviv University and an LL.M in Law from the Hebrew University, both with highest honors.

As a Forester by initial training, working in the forestry and climate change field, Dr Tuhinul Khalil decided to change the course of his career, through a chance visit to a slum dwelling children’s education centre in a deprived area in Bangladesh. He met children who made him realise the importance of being allowed an education, care and equality, irrespective of ones’ social position.

Tuhin has over 24 years of experience in leadership, operational, strategic management, policy development; teaching and research. He has worked with several international development organization and universities including UNICEF, Save the Children, Plan International, Action Aid, TdH Netherland, BRAC and Strathclyde University, University of East Anglia and University of Edinburgh.

With a PhD in Child and Youth Care and International Development, MA in International Child and Youth Care and MBA in Human Resource Management, Tuhin has worked in Asia, Africa and Europe in the field child welfare management; education and wellbeing; orphan and orphanage; faith-based child care; brothels; sex workers; refugee and migrant children; violence against women; healthcare; social protection; alternative livelihood; and emergencies.

Currently Tuhin is Head of Programmes, Knowledge and Development at Muntada Aid – a UK based Africa focused development INGO, operating in 36 countries around the globe, serving over 100000 children and youth in care through its Education and Child Welfare Programme. He is also a Senior Research Fellow at University of Edinburgh. He has preferred to work within NGOs, education and research organizations together in order to have a better understanding of the issues affecting children and their families thus to bridge the gap between academia, practitioner organizations and policy-makers in order to strengthen the rights of children.

Tuhin is co-editing a 5 volume book series on, ‘Residential Child and Youth Care in the Developing World’ as principle editor which portrays issues of child and youth care, displacement; war victims, migration; education, poverty and livelihood issues situated in 86 countries. The series is made up of: Volume 1: Global Perspectives - published in August 2016. Volume 2: European Perspectives and Volume 3: Middle East and Asia Perspectives - published in April 2017 and April 2018 respectively. Volume 4: African Perspectives and Volume 5: Canadian Perspectives are due to be published by April 2019 and June 2019 respectively. The series has already stimulated much discussion about the continuing development of residential care in different parts of the world and where the future of residential care services might lead. The series call for "a multi-dimensional approach that replaces simplistic de-institutionalisation strategies."

Tova Hartman is the Dean of Humanities at Ono Academic College, the largest private college in Israel.  With over 15,000 students  on several campuses, Ono seeks to make higher education accessible to all communities in Israel, especially to those marginal groups for whom higher education had previously not been an option.  

Tova’s last book, Are You Not a Man of God?: Devotion, Betrayal, and Social Criticism in Jewish Tradition (Oxford), brought feminist theory and relational psychology to bear on Jewish theology and culture. Her prior book, Feminism Encounters Jewish Tradition: Resistance and Accommodation (Brandeis), won a National Jewish Book Award.  Her first book, Appropriately Subversive: Modern Mothers in Traditional Religions (Harvard), based on her doctoral thesis under Carol Gilligan, was a comparative study of the experiences of traditional Catholic and Jewish women as mothers and as agents of socialization in their communities and cultures. This brought her into the world of interfaith research and social action, where she maintains a vital presence as a speaker and teacher at conferences relating to scholarship, religion, and social change.  Tova is one of the founders of Shira Hadasha in Jerusalem, the first Orthodox “partnership” synagogue.  She continues to publish scholarly and popular articles and speaks regularly at a diverse range of venues across North America, Europe, and Israel.She is currently completing a book on male trauma and shame.

Biography

Abstract