Prof. Noah Feldman is Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. He specializes in constitutional studies, with particular emphasis on the relationship between law and religion, constitutional design, and the history of legal theory. He is the author of eight books. Amongst them: "The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State" and "After Jihad: America and the Struggle for Islamic Democracy."

Dr. Yochi Fisher is a senior research fellow and director of the Advanced Studies unit at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute. She is an historian whose research interests include religion and secularization in local contexts and in comparative perspective. Dr. Fisher heads several local and international collaborative projects – including "Religious and Political Identities: The Mediterranean Basin since 1492" with Georgetown University, and an international research group on "Religion and Secularism in Non-Western Societies: Comparative Aspects." She is the author of the 2015 volume, Secularization and Secularism: Interdisciplinary Perspectives.

Prof. Shmuel Feiner is a professor of modern Jewish history at Bar Ilan University, the Samuel Braun Chair for the History of the Jews in Prussia and the chair of the Leo Baeck Institute in Jerusalem. His areas of historical research include processes of modernization and secularization among 18th and 19th century European Jewry, with a focus on the Jewish Enlightenment.

Ruth Gavison is a law professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her areas of research include ethnic conflict, the protection of minorities, human rights, political theory, judiciary law, religion and politics, and Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.

Micah Goodman, a lecturer in Jewish thought at the Hebrew University and senior research fellow at the Hartman Institute, heads the Ein Prat Academy for Leadership, Israel’s foremost pluralistic Bet Midrash for young adults. A prominent thinker and leading voice on Judaism, Zionism, the Bible, and the challenges facing Israel and world Jewry today, he is the author of two bestselling books: The Secrets of the Guide for the Perplexed (2011) and The Dream of the Kuzari (2012). In addition to numerous awards for his publications, he is a 2014 recipient of the Marc and Henia Liebhaber Prize for Religious Tolerance.

Ali Haider served in the past decade as co-director of Sikkuy, the Association for the Advancement of Equal Opportunity (between the Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel). In this capacity he ran several projects, including the Equality Index. He initiated and led the Project to Develop Leadership and Community Entrepreneurship in the Arab Sector and worked as an attorney for several human rights organizations. Ali was a co-author of the Future Vision of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel documents (2006). He is a founder and active member of many civil society organizations, including the Arab Pedagogic Council, Adalah, the I’lam Center, and the Center for Social Justice. Ali holds an LLB and LLM from Bar-Ilan University and an MA in political science from the University of Haifa. He studied human rights and Israeli society at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for one year, and studied journalism for a year at Ha’aretz. Ali is interested in a number of topics, including human and civil rights, public policy, and philosophy (especially Islamic philosophy). He contributes frequent opinion pieces to the Arabic, Hebrew, and English press.

Moshe Halbertal is an Israeli Jewish philosopher, professor, and writer, and a noted expert on Maimonides. He is co-author of the Israeli Army Code of Ethics.

​Yair Hamburger is chair of the board of Harel Insurance Investments & Financial Services Ltd., having served as the CEO from its establishment in 1975 until 2010. He is credited with growing the small insurance firm into the third largest elementary insurance company in Israel. He is, in addition, the chair of Kaedan Capital Ltd., Harel PIA Mutual Funds Ltd., Connex Jerusalem Ltd. and Harel Insurance Company Ltd. He was awarded an honorary degree from Netanya Academic College in recognition of his work in furthering insurance and his contribution to social causes in various spheres of Israeli society.

Daniel C. Kurtzer is the S. Daniel Abraham Professor of Middle East Policy Studies at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He received his PhD from Columbia University. During his 29-year career in the US Foreign Service, he served as US ambassador to Israel and to Egypt and played key roles in shaping US policy in the Middle East peace process. He is the recipient of distinguished service awards from both the President and the Secretary of State. He is the co-author of Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace: American Leadership in the Middle East (2008) and The Peace Puzzle: America’s Quest for Arab-Israeli Peace, 1989-2011 (2013).

Nicole Krauss has been hailed by the New York Times as "one of America's most important novelists." She is the author of the international bestsellers, "Man Walks Into a Room" (2002), "The History of Love" (2005) and "Great House" (2010). Her fiction has been published in The New Yorker, Harper's, Esquire, and Best American Short Stories, and her books have been translated into more than thirty-five languages.

Yosef Kaplan is professor emeritus of the history of the Jewish people at the Hebrew University where he was one of the founders of the School of History and subsequently held many senior positions. He also serves as chair of the humanities division of the Israeli Academy of Science and Humanities. He has had visiting appointments at many prestigious universities. He is the recipient of many prizes and distinctions including the Israel Prize for his work on the history of the Jewish people (2013). He is the author of numerous publications on subjects such as medieval Jewish history, the Sephardi diaspora, and ideological ferment in the early Jewish enlightenment.

Prof. (Emeritus) George J. Kanazi born in Nazareth, Israel in 1941. Academic studies: First & second degrees: Hebrew University in Arabic Language and literature, and English language and literature, Muslim civilization. (1962-1966) Third degree: University of California, Los Angeles, (UCLA), Medieval Arabic theory of rhetoric and literary criticism, 1971. Fields of research: Arabic theory of literary criticism, Arabic poetry, shi'ite literature. Publications: Nine books on literary criticism, theory of love in medieval Arabic literature, Wine in medieval Arabic literature, and other topics. Tens of articles on various topics in medieval Arabic literature.

Nidaa Khoury is a poet, translator, critique and literary scholar, born in Fassouta in Israel's Upper Galilee. Khoury is a senior lecturer in Ben-Gurion University and has written numerous poetry books in her native Arabic, many of which have been translated into various languages. Among these are Kitab al-khataya (The Book of Sins) (2011), Kitab al-khalal (Book of Defect) (2011), and Be-Guf Akher (In another Body), an anthology of poems translated into Hebrew (2011). Her book The Bitter Crown (1997) was censored in Jordan. Khoury has served as a coordinator of the High Follow-up Committee for Arab Citizens in Israel, she was founder and director of the NGO Survival working on behalf of minorities in Israel, and is active in Al-Nuhud, an association for the promotion of Bedouin women. Among the prizes she has been awarded are the Literature Prize from the Ministry of Culture (2000), and The Levi Eshkol Memorial Prize for Hebrew Authors (2012).

Peter N. Miller is professor of history and dean and chair of academic programs at Bard Graduate Center, having received his Ph.D. from Cambridge University in 1990. He has held various visiting appointments and is a past fellow of both the MacArthur and the Guggenheim Foundations. Known for his expertise in intellectual history, he has written many books on philosophical and methodological issues in the history of historiography and cultural history including Defining the Common Good: Empire, Religion and Philosophy in Eighteenth-Century Britain (1994, 2004) and Peiresc's Orient: Antiquarianism as Cultural History in the Seventeenth Century (2012).

Political scientist Dominique Moisi is the co-founder and a senior advisor of the French Institute of International Affairs (IFRI). He has served as a professor at L'Institut d'études politiques de Paris, and a visiting professor both at Harvard and at the College of Europe in Natolin. He is a member of the International Advisory Council of the Moscow School of Political Studies and of the European Council on Foreign Relations. Former editor-in-chief and current editorial board member of Politique étrangère, Moisi regularly contributes op-ed articles and essays to various renowned international publications. He is also the author of The Geopolitics of Emotion: How Cultures of Fear, Humiliation and Hope are Reshaping the World (2010).

Fania Oz-Salzberger is a professor of history in the faculty of law at the University of Haifa where she also heads the Posen Research Forum for Jewish European and Israeli Political Thought. She is active on the advisory boards of the Israel Democracy Institute and the German-Israeli Future Forum. She has held visiting appointments at Monash University and Princeton among other academic institutions. She is the author of many publications in her specialized field of the history of ideas and political thought including Israeli in Berlin (2001), and the more recent Jews and Words (2012) which she co-authored with her father, the writer Amos Oz.

Diana Pinto is an historian and writer living in Paris. Her work has focused mainly on multiple identities inside pluralist democracies. In this context she has written and lectured widely on Jewish life in contemporary Europe. Her latest book "Israel Has Moved" (2013), a cultural-political reflection on Israel’s changing coordinates.

Haviva Pedaya, poet, author and cultural critic. She is professor of Jewish history at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and head of the Elyachar Center for Sephardi Heritage. She has published articles on religion, sociology, art, history, and mysticism as well as three volumes of poetry.

Prof. Tamar Ross is a professor of Jewish Philosophy at Bar Ilan University and considered one of the world's greatest experts on religious feminist philosophy. She is the author of books and articles on Jewish ethics and theology, contemporary issues in traditional Jewish thought, philosophy of halakha, and Orthodox Jewish feminism.

Natan Sharansky, one of the most famous former Soviet Union refuseniks, is the chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel. A leader in the struggle for the right of Soviet Jews to immigrate to Israel, Sharansky went on to found the Yisrael B’Aliyah political party and served in four successive Israeli governments as a minister and deputy prime minister. He is the author of three bestselling books, including a memoir Fear No Evil (1988) which has been translated into several languages, and is the recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor (1986) and the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2006).

Prof. Mati Steinberg specializes in Palestinian national thought and issues of Islamic fundamentalism. For many years he held senior positions in the field of research intelligence. From 1996-2003 he served as an advisor to heads of Israel's security services. Prof. Steinberg is a researcher in the Israel Democracy Institute's Amnon Lipkin-Shahak Program on National Security and Democracy.

Sammy Smooha is professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Haifa. He previously served as the dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and was president of the Israeli Sociological Society. He has held numerous visiting appointments at universities and research institutes, and in 2008 was awarded the Israel Prize for Sociology. A specialist in comparative ethnic relations, Smooha has published widely on internal divisions in Israeli society, on Israel from a comparative perspective, and on Arab-Jewish relations in Israel. He developed the model of ethnic democracy and applied it, along with other scholars, to Israel and other countries. Since 2003 he has been conducting the annual Index of Arab-Jewish Relations in Israel.

Rabbi Haim Sabato is an Israeli rabbi and author. Nearly three decades after he fought in the Yom Kippur War, his account of his experiences was published in the highly acclaimed novel "Adjusting Sights". His other novels include "Aleppo Tales" and "The Dawning of the Day". Rabbi Sabato co-founded the Birkat Moshe yeshiva in Maaleh Adumim near Jerusalem, in which he teaches to this day.

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks is an international religious leader, philosopher, award-winning author and respected moral voice. He served for 22 years as Chief Rabbi of the UK and Commonwealth. He is the author of over 30 books, including the bestseller "Not in God’s Name: Confronting Religious Violence" (2015).

Prof. Shibley Telhami is a Professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland. Shibley is an expert on U.S. policy in the Middle East, on Arab politics, and on shifting political identities in the Arab world. He regularly conducts public opinion polls in the Arab world, Israel, and the United States. Among his many publications are “The World Through Arab Eyes", “The Peace Puzzle", and the best-selling “The Stakes: America in the Middle East”.

One of America’s foremost political thinkers, Prof. Michael Walzer has written about a wide variety of topics in political theory and moral philosophy, including political obligation, just and unjust war, nationalism and ethnicity, economic justice, and the welfare state. He served as co-editor of the political journal Dissent for more than three decades, retiring in 2014.

Leon Wieseltier is a writer, critic, philosopher and literary editor. Amongst his books – "Kaddish" (1998), which won the Jewish Book Council Award. He also won the 2013 Dan David Prize for his contributions to ideas and contemporary philosophy.