Honorary Board
Honorary Board helps represent and promote the Institute outwardly.
Currently, its members are:
Yehuda Bauer (1926) Israeli historian and scholar of the Holocaust. Professor of Holocaust Studies at the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Born and raised in Prague, Czechoslovakia. In 1939 the family migrated to Palestine. Upon completing high school in Haifa, he joined the Palmach. He attended Cardiff University in Wales, interrupting his studies to fight in the 1948 Israeli War of Independence, after which he completed his degree. Bauer returned to Israel and began his graduate work in history at Hebrew University. He received his doctorate in 1960 for a thesis on the British Mandate of Palestine. He served on the central committee of Mapam, then the junior partner party of Israel's ruling Labour Party, and was a visiting professor at Brandeis University, Yale University, Richard Stockton College, and Clark University. He was the founding editor of the ''Journal for Holocaust and Genocide Studies'', and served on the editorial board of the ''Encyclopedia of the Holocaust'', published by Yad Vashem in 1990.
Václav Havel (1936 - 2011) Czech playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and politician. He was the tenth and last President of Czechoslovakia (1989–92) and the first President of the Czech Republic (1993–2003). He has written over twenty plays and numerous non-fiction works, translated internationally. After the Prague Spring, he became increasingly active also in politics. In 1977, his involvement with the human rights manifesto Charter 77 brought him international fame as the leader of the opposition in Czechoslovakia; it also led to his imprisonment. The 1989 "Velvet Revolution" launched Havel into the presidency. In this role he led Czechoslovakia and later the Czech Republic to multi-party democracy. His thirteen years in office saw radical change in his nation, including its split with Slovakia, which Havel opposed, its accession into NATO and start of the negotiations for membership in the European Union, which was attained in 2004.
Stuart Eizenstat (1943) Partner in Washington, D.C. law firm, Covington & Burling and senior strategist at APCO Worldwide. From 1977 to 1981, he was President Jimmy Carter’s Chief Domestic Policy Adviser, and Executive Director of the White House Domestic Policy Staff. He was President Bill Clinton's Deputy Secretary of the Treasury (1999–2001), Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business, and Agricultural Affairs (1997–1999), and also served as the Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade at the International Trade Administration (ITA) from 1996 to 1997. He has served as the United States Ambassador to the European Union from 1993 to 1996 and as co-chairman of the European-American Business Council (EABC). Throughout his career, also as a U. S. Special Envoy for Property Claims in Central and Eastern Europe, he played a key role in the fight for the restitution of Holocaust survivors´ and victims´ rights. His book „Imperfect Justice“ is a valuable source of information in this field.
Moshe Sanbar (1926) Economist and Israeli public figure. Born in Kecskemet, Hungary. During the Nazi occupation of Hungary, he was drafted to the Labour Service and shortly later sent to the Dachau concentration camp. In 1948 Sanbar immigrated to Israel. For many years, Sanbar was active in financial affairs within the academy, in public service and in the private sector. Between 1960- 1971 he held high level functions in the Israeli Ministry of Finance, concluding as a financial advisor to Minister and as the Director of Budgeting. In 1970 he was appointed Acting Minister of Trade and Industry. Between 1971 and 1976 Sanbar served as Governor of the Bank of Israel. After his retirement from public service, Sanbar worked for example as Chairman of Bank Leumi (1988–1995) and as financial consultant, alongside voluntary work in cultural, educational and social organizations, among others, he was the President of ICC Israel. The Moshe Sanbar Institute for Applied Economic Research was named in his honor. Since 1987 he has been active in various national and international organizations working for the benefit of Holocaust survivors. He was Chairman of the Executive Board, Treasurer and Deputy Chairman of the Claims Conference.
Elie Wiesel (1928). Romanian-born Jewish-American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor. Author of 57 books, including Night, a work based on his experiences as a prisoner in the Auschwitz, Buna, and Buchenwald concentration camps. Wiesel is also the Advisory Board Chairman of the Algemeiner Journal newspaper. When Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, the Norwegian Nobel Committee called him a "messenger to mankind", stating that through his struggle to come to terms with "his own personal experience of total humiliation and of the utter contempt for humanity shown in Hitler's death camps", as well as his "practical work in the cause of peace", Wiesel had delivered a powerful message "of peace, atonement and human dignity" to humanity.
Simone Veil (1927) French lawyer and politician who served as Minister of Health under Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, President of the European Parliament and member of the Constitutional Council of France. A survivor from the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp where she lost part of her family, she is the Honorary President of the Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah.
