The Scholars for Peace in the Middle East Board of Directors is please to announce the appointment of Dr. Samuel M. Edelman as Executive Director for SPME.
Prof. Edelman will provide professional administrative and development support for the programs and services of SPME as well as to its officers, chapter chairs and committee people.
He also continues as the co-Director of the California State Center of Excellence in Holocaust, Genocide, Human Rights and Tolerance Education and has been the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the American Jewish University (formerly University of Judaism) in Los Angeles. He is also an Emeritus Professor of Communication Studies at CSU Chico. He has been a professor of Jewish and Holocaust Studies as well as rhetoric and Communication Studies. He was the founder of the program in Modern Jewish and Israel Studies at the California State University Chico in Northern California. Edelman was also the coordinator of the California State University Statewide Modern Jewish Studies BA Degree. He was Scholar-in-Residence at Haifa University in Jewish Education.
In the summer of 2008 Edelman was chosen to become a Brandeis University, Schusterman Center for Israel Studies Fellow. He has been involved in a number of Israel Studies oriented projects including developing curricular materials for high school teachers to teach about Israel.
Edelman was Scholar in Residence in Jewish Education at Haifa University in 2002 and was Lehrhause Judaica visiting distinguished lecturer in 2003. At Lehrhause he delivered an 8 week course on Anti-Semitism. He has been invited to return for the 2004 session. In the summer of 2003 at the behest of the Kurdish Mission to the UN he traveled to northern Iraq to interview Kurdish survivors of Saddam Husseins genocidal actions.
Edelman is the editor of “Within a Widening Gyre” published by Hampden Press. This work focuses on expanding our perspective of rhetoric beyond the Greco-Roman tradition. Edelman is currently writing two texts: “Yelling at G-d”: Jewish Rhetoric and Argumentation and “Theology of Despair-Pedagogy of Hope”: and exploration into the Shoah Poetry of Yitzhak Katzenelson.
Edelman has been chair of the CSU, Chico Academic Senate and was a Statewide Academic Senator representing CSU, Chico.
His Ph.D. is in Communication Studies and Jewish Studies from the University of Arizona and his BA and MA are from the Pennsylvania State University. He has been an academic for 38 years. Edelman has been a consultant in public speaking, intercultural communication and organizational communication to numerous companies and governmental organizations in the United States, Israel and South Africa. He has done training for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the Israeli Foreign Ministry and the Jewish Agency. He lectures on the topics of Jewish rhetoric, the Arab Israeli Peace negotiations, the Holocaust as well as on the use of modern technology for distance learning.
Edelman has been teaching and lecturing on the Shoah, Israel and Anti-Semitism for 33 years. His major focus is on Cultural Resistance. He has produced five documentaries on the shoah for public radio and is the winner of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting award for humanities documentaries. He is also written extensively and teaches on Anti-Semitism, Jewish rhetoric, Israeli Public Address, and the Arab-Israeli Conflict and issues concerning Genocide.
Commenting on his appointment, Co-Founder and President Emeritus Edward S. Beck of Walden University said, ” Having recruited an Executive Director of Sam Edelman’s accomplishments is a testimony to SPME’s impactual growth and unique character. We welcome this seasoned academic and administrator to guide and aid us as we continue to grow and address the vexing problems of anti-Israelism and anti-Semitism in our colleges and universities.”
Judith Jacobson, SPME’s other Co-Founder and Vice President for Internal Relations and Co-Chair of Columbia University’s SPME Chapter observes, ” Professor Edelman has wide-ranging experience as a scholar and senior university administrator. He has played leadership roles in a number of academic organizations. He has held grants and published extensively in several fields that are relevant to SPME’s mission. Among the many intriguing items in his CV is a grant he received in 2004 from the Kurdish Mission to the United Nations to travel to Northern Iraq for interviews with Kurdish survivors of genocide. I look forward to working with him and learning from him.”
Prof. Rabbi Peter Haas, Abba Hillel Silver Professor of Jewish Studies and Chair of the Department of Religion at Case Western Reserve University who serves as SPME’s Vice President for External Relations commented, ” Sam brings to the position extensive energetic and successful academic and administrative experience very relevant to the mission and goals of SPME.”
