After coming back to Tel Aviv, we had our last day of the trip—day 4 of what already felt like a 4 week trip. No visit to Tel Aviv is complete today without a stop to the courtyard of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, now known as Hostages Square. We visited the art installations … Continue reading Israel Reflections 2024–Day Four–Hostage Square
After a very long day at sites of destruction, we were so blessed to have time with freed hostage Liat Atzili. Liat was kidnapped by Hamas and returned after 54 days in one of the exchanges last fall. Liat had already written quite beautifully about her experience for the New York Times in February in … Continue reading Israel Reflections 2024–Day Three–Meeting with Freed Hostage Liat Atzili
Lovely to see so many colleagues this past weekend at the ABA! And back to reporting from last month’s trip to Israel: We had started day three by visiting Kibbutz Urim with Julia Chaitin, which miraculously escaped harm from Hamas. We stopped in the middle of the day at Kibbutz Nirim, where we visited with … Continue reading Israel Reflections 2024–Day Three–Kibbutz Be’eri/Honoring Vivian Silver
A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of attending the Vis Moot in Vienna, Austria on behalf of my law school and arbitrating a few sessions. I used some of my “down time” to visit the Jewish Museum in Vienna (mainly to learn more about the history of Jewish life and persecution in the … Continue reading Conceptions of Peace
In between the visits to the kibbutzes, we also visited the Nova Festival Site. This is the only part of our visit south that is open to the public as most kibbutzes are trying to get back to normal or are uninhabited and locked for security reasons. This was an incredibly difficult experience for everyone … Continue reading Israel Reflections 2024–Day Three–The Nova Music Festival Site
On Day 3 of the trip we headed south to visit the destroyed kibbutzes near Gaza, see the sight of the Nova music festival, and speak with the people affected. This day was graciously arranged for us by law professor and colleague Roy Peled whose connections to the kibbutz movement made these visits possible. We … Continue reading Israel Reflections 2024–Day Three–Visiting the South/Contemplating Peace
It is the time of year for law schools’ yearly genuflecting to the USNews Rankings, and this year is no different – even for those of us in the Dispute Resolution community. With that in mind, here are the 2025 USNews rankings for law school Dispute Resolution Programs. Drumroll please. . . . . Ohio … Continue reading 2025 USNews ADR Specialty Rankings
The issue of hostage negotiation is front and center throughout Israel. Even when business or school appears to be operating “as usual”, it is clear that the focus of the Israeli people is on the hostages. Their photos are everywhere—bus stations, sides of buildings, even in the public seats in the Knesset. And banners—to free … Continue reading Israel Reflections 2024–The Law (and Strategy) of Hostage Negotiations
A trip about the law would not be complete without a visit to the Supreme Court and we were also very happy to fit in a visit to the Knesset (the Parliament ) as well on our second day of the trip. The comments from Justice Ruth Ronnen about how she decides cases was a … Continue reading Israel Reflections 2024–Day Two–The Law & Understanding Both Sides of a Case
One of the things that has been in my mind throughout the last six months in particular was for how long Jewish and Islamic culture thrived side by side over the past hundreds of years—hopefully this conflict is a short break in a longer story of coexistence. Our final stop of the day was at … Continue reading Israel Reflections 2024–Day One–Islamic & Jewish Texts in Conversations
