Israel@77 - Looking Back to look Forward

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Temple Beth El of Boca Raton and Dr. Ken Stein

Yom Ha'atzmaut Israel@77- Looking Back to Look Forward

Temple Beth El of Boca Raton presents Israel @ 77: Looking Back to Look Forward with Dr. Ken Stein of the Center for Israel Education at their Schaefer Family Campus in east Boca Raton on May 1, 2025 at 7:00 pm. Free and open to the public, however registration is required.

Event info:

October 7, 2023 stunned Israelis, American Jews and others across the world. Could the heinous Hamas attacks on Israelis been avoided?

In February and March 2025, the Israel Defense Forces released a series of findings that pointed to wrong-headed thinking and preparations prior to October 7. What mindsets and miscalculations were in fact deeply held in the months and years before the attacks? Underestimation of the enemy, domestic complacency, and overconfidence in one’s own superiority were the mistakes that Israeli intelligence made fifty years earlier prior to the outbreak of the October 1973 War!

• Why did so many in 2023 believe that a peaceful resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict was possible if only Israel made the necessary overtures, or if the Israeli leadership were different?

• Did Israelis and her supporters worldwide truly understand that Hamas’ motivations and those elsewhere in the Muslim world were singularly interested in killing Jews and eradicating Israel?

• How will October 7 and its aftermath be remembered and taught to generations to come?

• Will it only be remembered as just another tragic event in Jewish history or, in addition are there valuable lessons to be gleaned about ourselves and our neighbors that must be taught to our children.

• Are we prepared to change our collective mindsets to avoid more miscalculations?

No Fee but Registration is Required

Speaker Bio:

Dr. Kenneth Stein is Emory University Emeritus Professor of Contemporary Middle Eastern History, Political Science, and Israel Studies. From 1977 to 2024 he taught some 5800 students, earning university and national recognition for his excellence in teaching, life-long mentoring of students, internationalizing the curriculum. He was awarded ADL recognition for his intellectual integrity for refuting the inaccuracies and inventions in Jimmy Carter’s controversial 2006 book, Palestine Peace Not Apartheid. Ken also took issue with Carter’s full-throated embrace of Hamas. He authored six books and since 1977 became the key scholarly link between Emory and the Atlanta community in teaching about Israel, US foreign policy toward the region and the modern Arab world. Ken’s record as a superb scholar and valued public intellectual has been recognized world-wide. Ken and his family support several scholarships at Israeli universities that promote the study of modern Israel.

Ken was the first director of the Carter Center 1983-1986; he founded and directed at Emory the first permanent Institute for the Study of modern Israel (1998- 2024) in the U.S, and he remains the founding President the Center for Israel Education, which started in 2008. The Center for Israel Education – CIE is unique world-wide; it has evolved to be the largest visited English website globally for access to timely and reliable content on Israeli history, politics and society. 2.4 million users visited the website in 2024. CIE targets young adults, the general public, and Spanish readers. In fifteen years it has enriched Israel knowledge for 400,000 educators, Jewish and non-Jewish clergy. In an age of Instagram, Facebook, ‘X” and multiple blogging all across the political spectrum, the CIE website stays true to the provision of trustworthy information about modern Israel and its quest to remain the nation-state of the Jewish people