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Israel is NOT an Apartheid State - An Evening with Benjamin Pogrund
When Benjamin Pogrund, one of the country’s most distinguished journalists, began his career as a young reporter in the 1950’s, the Daily Mail was beginning to emerge as South Africa’s leading newspaper. As the “African affairs reporter,” and eventually deputy editor, it was Pogrund who brought the words of black leaders like Robert Sobukwe and Nelson Mandela to the pages of the Rand Daily Mail. As the liberation struggle heated up over the next 30 years, the apartheid regime responded with increasing viciousness, and the Rand Daily Mail found itself in a war of words with the Afrikaner Nationalist government. At various times Pogrund was denied a passport, detained for refusing to disclose the identity of an informant, prosecuted for reports courageously exposing appalling jail conditions of blacks and political prisoners, and subjected to police searches in his home. Pogrund eventually saw the death of the Daily Mail in the 1980’s.
In later years, Pogrund was chief foreign sub-editor of The Independent, London and editor of the World Paper Boston. He immigrated to Israel in 1997 to assume the directorship of the Yakar Center for Social Concern in Jerusalem and applies his South African experience in fostering contact across lines of division. The Center’s goals are to stimulate Israelis to think afresh about issues of Jewish concern and to pursue dialogue between Jews and Muslims and between Israelis and Palestinians. At the request of the Foreign Ministry he joined Israel’s delegation to the Durban UN Anti-Racism conference in August 2001.

Remembering the Holocaust: Bridges of Hope

Soldier and Witness at Buchenwald
Dr. Leon Bass
I joined the United States Army and was assigned to an all black unit attached to General Patton’s Third Army. No one had ever mentioned to me what had been going on in Europe since the 1930s. But, on this day in April in 1945, I was going to have the shock of my life. I was going to go through the gates of Buchenwald. And I was totally unprepared for that experience.

Child Survivor of the Holocaust
Robbie Waisman
I was fourteen years old when I was liberated from Buchenwald on April 11, 1945. I ran out
after a jeep and saw some black American
soldiers. I went up to one of them and I touched him. His name was Leon Bass.

The Middle East: Democracy & Dictators
David Horovitz is the editor of The Jerusalem Report, the award-winning Jerusalem-based newsmagazine covering Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world. He writes for newspapers around the world and is a frequent commentator on the BBC, CNN, NPR and other international news outlets. Mr. Horovitz edited and co-authored The Jerusalem Report's 1996 biography of Yitzhak Rabin, "Shalom, Friend," which was published in 12 countries, and which won the U.S. National Jewish Book Award for non-fiction. His most recent book, "A Little Too Close to God: The Thrills and Panic of a Life in Israel," was published in the U.S. in the summer of 2000 by Alfred A. Knopf. Warmly reviewed twice by The New York Times, it was named by Amazon.com as one of the 10 best Jewish books of the year 2000. Mr. Horovitz immigrated to Israel from England in 1983, and holds a degree in International Relations from the Hebrew University. In the army reserves, he serves in the Educational Corps. Mr. Horovitz and his wife Lisa have three children.

Important Community Briefing
The Information War: How the Power of the Internet is being Unleashed against the Jewish People and Israel
With the war looming, Dr. Uzi Arad is needed in Israel. Instead, Professor Yaov Gelber, Chair of Haifa University School of History and expert on the Arab-Israeli conflict, will be in Seattle to explore this problem and discuss a new effort that has the support of the Israeli PM, IDF, Minister of Education (who will involve college and possibly high school students in developing content), as well as the IDC which is part of the Lauder School of Government in Herzliya. The site will be targeted at the general public including school children, academia, journalists, and people seeking the truth. There will be 3 levels of information, to address the appropriate depth of detail.

Prospects for Palestinian Reform and Democracy
Dr. Jonathan Adelman is a full professor at the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver and a Senior Fellow with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. In addition to authoring numerous scholarly works on international affairs, Dr. Adelman has also spoken on 14 international lecture tours for the State Department to 13 countries, from Germany, England and Spain to Russia, China, India and Japan. He also participated in the Arab-Israeli talks in Barcelona in 1991. Dr. Adelman served as dissertation advisor to National Security Council Advisor Condoleezza Rice and has appeared on several major networks to comment on Israel and other foreign policy topics. Dr. Jonathan Adelman holds a Ph.D. from Columbia University.

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