Paul Eidelberg
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Paul Eidelberg is an internationally known political scientist, author and lecturer, and is the founder and president of The Foundation for Constitutional Democracy with offices in Jerusalem. He is also president of the Yamin Israel Party.
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[edit] Early career
Prof. Eidelberg served in the United States Air Force where he held the rank of first lieutenant. He received his doctoral degree at the University of Chicago where he studied under Leo Strauss. He designed the electronic equipment for the first brain scanner at the Argonne Cancer Research Hospital.
[edit] Academic career
Before immigrating to Israel in 1976, Prof. Eidelberg wrote a trilogy on America’s founding fathers: The Philosophy of the American Constitution (ISBN 0819153419), On the Silence of the Declaration of Independence (ISBN 0870232169), and a Discourse on Statesmanship (ISBN 0252004280).
In 1976 he joined the faculty of Bar-Ilan University. From the world-renowned Rabbi Dr. Chaim Zimmerman of blessed memory, he learned how to interface Torah and political science.
He has written several books on the Arab-Israel conflict and on Judaism. Demophrenia (ISBN 093345127X) analyses the mentality of Israel’s ruling elites. Jewish Statesmanship: Lest Israel Fall (ISBN 0761823808), which has been translated into Hebrew and Russian, reveals the flaws inherent in Israel’s system of governance and how they may be remedied. His latest work, A Jewish Philosophy of History (ISBN 0595316956), investigates the world-historical events leading to the rebirth of Israel in 1948.
[edit] Policy and Politics
Prof. Eidelberg has drafted a Constitution for the State of Israel, which has influenced various Knesset Members interested in constitutional reform.
Eidelberg is on the Advisory Council of the Ariel Center for Policy Research, which has published many of his policy papers. In addition to writing more than 1,000 articles for newspapers and scholarly journals in the U.S. and Israel, he is a weekly guest on The Tamar Yonah Show on Arutz Sheva Israel National Radio.
During the past seven years, Prof. Eidelberg has been lecturing throughout Israel and has conducted seminars on constitutions, diverse parliamentary electoral systems, Jewish law, and related topics at the Jerusalem center of the Foundation for Constitutional Democracy.
In 2003, Eidelberg's Yamin Israel ran with Herut – The National Movement for the Knesset elections of that year. The joint list fell just 8,000 votes short of the electoral threshold. After the elections Herut and Yamin Israel parted ways.
In 2005, Yamin Israel merged with the Jewish National Front. Eidelberg stood number seven on the JNF's list for the Israeli Knesset for the March 28, 2006 election. The party did win enough votes for the equivalent of one Knesset seat, however, it did not pass Israel's electoral threshold. Yamin Israel and the JNF have since parted ways due to political and ideological differences.
Prof. Eidelberg has a weekly column in the Jewish Press, a leading American Orthodox Jewish newspaper.
