Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies

The Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies is an interdisciplinary research center devoted to the study of the modern history and contemporary affairs of the Middle East and Africa. The Center does not take positions or recommend policies. Through research, publications, conferences, documentary collections, and public service, it seeks to inform civil society and promote dialogue on the complexities of the ever-changing Middle East. In doing so, the Center hopes to advance peace through understanding.^[1]

History

The Center's origins lie in the Reuven Shiloah Institute, first established in 1959 under the auspices of the Israel Oriental Society. In 1965, the Shiloah Institute was incorporated into Tel Aviv University. In 1983, the University established the Moshe Dayan Center, which combined the Shiloah Institute and documentation units dealing with the Middle East. Generous friends of the late Moshe Dayan raised the endowment necessary to establish and sustain the Center.^[2] The Center is part of the School of History and the Lester and Sally Entin Faculty of Humanities at Tel Aviv University.

Activities

The Center maintains its own specialist library housing an extensive collection of journals, articles, archival materials (including the British Archive's Archive Editions), economic source and statistical data, and other reference materials.^[3]

The Arabic Press Archive of the Center is one of the largest and the most comprehensive collections of modern and contemporary Arabic-language newspapers in the world. It includes more than one thousand reels of microfilmed newspapers, the first of which appeared in 1877, as well as a hard-copy a collection containing more than 6,000 newspapers, magazines and periodicals from all over the Middle East.^[4]

The Center also runs an actual workshop for university faculty whose work revolves around Israel and the Middle East.^[5] The workshop, run by Prof. Uzi Rabi, is a ten-day seminar on the geopolitics of Israel and its neighbors, and the history of the region and its significance in contemporary world affairs.^[6]

Governance and Partnerships

The Moshe Dayan Center is governed by an Israeli Board of Governors, on the advice of an International Advisory Council. It is administered by an academic director. The Center is funded by the University, an endowment, research grants, and contributions. The Moshe Dayan Center is the eldest and largest institution of its kind in Israel.^[7]

Some of its programs are in partnership with the Council of Higher Education of the Republic of Turkey and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. Its other foreign connections include Council on Foreign Relations in New York, the Turkish Foreign Policy Institute in Ankara, Royal Institute of International Affairs in London, Emory University, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and Middle East Technical University (METU) in Ankara.^[7]

In August 2015, The Moshe Dayan Center signed an agreement to collaborate with the Center for Israel Studies (Jordan).

Publications

• Joshua R. Goodman, Contesting Identities in South Sinai: Development, Transformation, and the Articulation of a "Bedouin" Identity under Egyptian Rule, Syracuse UP (2014)
• Jason Hillman, "A Storm in a Tea-Cup": The Iraq-Kuwait Crisis of 1961 From Gulf Crisis to Inter-Arab Dispute, Syracuse UP (2014)
• Ed. Brandon Friedman and Bruce Maddy-Weitzman, Inglorious Revolutions: State Cohesion in the Middle East after the Arab Spring, Syracuse UP (2015)

Notable Staff

• Uzi Rabi, the Director of the Center. His specialisations include the modern history of states and societies in the Persian Gulf, state building in the Middle East, oil and politics in the Middle East, Iranian-Arab relations, and Sunni-Shi’i tensions.^[8]
• Itamar Rabinovich ^[9] Former Ambassador to the United States. Researcher in the history and politics of Syria and Lebanon

References

External links

• The Moshe Dayan Center Official site