Coronavirus in the Middle East – Israel and the Region with Avi Ben-Hur

Our Scholar-in-Residence Avi Ben-Hur was recently in Pittsburgh, where he spoke to over 1,000 students and educators at many area schools and community events. Now, Avi will continue to provide several “one-off” lectures on a variety of different topics using Zoom, including:
Coronavirus in the Middle East – Israel and the region: As the Coronavirus crisis began to move from China towards Europe and the rest of the world, Israel and the Middle East had some time to prepare with how they would cope with it. Different countries have been dealing with the pandemic in various ways. While it is too early to assess “right practices”, one can try and understand why certain nations have chosen different strategies. This lecture takes place on Thursday, March 26 at 2 pm. RSVP to receive the Zoom link.

Future lectures include:

Stepping out of the echo chamber – making sense of the flow of information and how to create a sensible, reasonable narrative to teach: In today’s day and age, educators and lay people alike are faced with three growing trends: an inundation of information, a culture of challenging the validity of facts, and a tendency to derive information from sources that are aligned with our own world views. With all this in mind, how can educators create a framework of understanding through which they can present a balanced narrative to their students? This presentation – also an open-ended discussion – aims to help us think about how to evaluate and choose our sources of information, process ideas, and assimilate them in a way that will enable us to educate in a fair and balanced manner. Date and time details TBD.

This page will continue to be updated as more details about his lecture offerings are planned in the coming weeks.

Avi Ben-Hur
A Brooklyn native, Avi moved to Israel in 1983. Currently, he is on the faculty of the University of Haifa Tourism School, an examiner for the Israeli Ministry of Tourism, and the Director of Education of Classrooms Without Borders.

An eclectic Israeli educator specializing in Land of Israel studies, the history of Jerusalem, the Arab-Israeli conflict and Holocaust studies, Avi’s expertise is in integrating ideas and knowledge from various disciplines into a comprehensive and coherent narrative.