The Friends of the Israel Defense Forces will present an exclusive briefing and reception featuring foreign policy expert and analyst Jonathan Adelman and the company commander of Israel’s 188th Armored Brigade Major Dori Saar on Tuesday, March 29, at 7 p.m. at the Jewish Community Center. They will address “The Syrian Conflict: How is Russia Influencing the Middle East, Israel and the IDF?” The community is invited.
Dr. Adelman served as a doctoral dissertation supervisor for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. He has worked extensively with several government agencies in Washington and spent eight years working for Science Application International Corp. (SAIC) as a senior scientist doing contract work on the Soviet military for the Defense Department.
For over a decade, he has made speaking tours for the State Department, speaking in venues around the world including India, China, Russia, Japan, Mongolia, England, France and Germany. In addition in the non-governmental sphere, he served for several years as a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
Today, he is a full professor at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. He has earned four degrees from Columbia University and has written or edited 12 books. In the last two years, he has written 30 op-eds on the Middle East, China and Russia, most of which have appeared on the websites of CNN, the Huffington Post, Forbes, Yedioth Ahronot and Fox News.
Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF) was established in 1981 by a group of Holocaust survivors under the leadership of John Klein, z”l, to provide for education and wellbeing of the men and women who serve in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) as well as the families of fallen soldiers.
The strength of the IDF, which has been guarding the State of Israel since it declared Independence in 1948, derives from the selfless determination and great capabilities of the young men and women who form it. At age 18, all Israelis are drafted into the IDF. Those who serve commit to uphold the difficult tasks of defending Israel’s borders and guaranteeing the safety of its people.
The Israeli government is responsible for training IDF soldiers and providing them with the necessary tools for their service. FIDF is committed to providing these soldiers with love, sup-port, and care in an effort to ease the burden they carry on behalf of the Jewish community worldwide.