Dr. Michael Bar Zohar

Dr. Michael Bar Zohar is an independent Israeli scholar, author, journalist, and former member of the Knesset. He received a PhD from the University of Paris. His writings and scholarly work have focused on Israeli leadership and history, as well as the plight of his native Bulgarian Jewish community in WWII.

In 1993, Dr. Bar Zohar taught the following courses as a visiting Israeli scholar at the Emory University History Department:

Personalities in Israeli Political History (Spring 1993)

The extraordinary face of Israel was shaped by a gallery of charismatic founding fathers and a second generation of brilliant and often rebellious sons. Israel might not have existed without the prophetic figure of David Ben-Gurion. Its history might have been different without the staunch Golda Meir, the conciliating Levi Eshkol, the diplomatic Abba Eban, the intrepid Moshe Dayan, the magnetic Menachem Begin, the iron-willed Shimon Peres, the dedicated Itzhak Rabin, and others. The colloquium followed these leaders in the struggles that shaped the main decisions in Israel's history.

Israeli Foreign and Defense Policies, 1948-Present (Spring 1993)

Haunted by the danger of destruction by their neighbors, Israel's leaders have for years subordinated their foreign policy to the needs of national defense. The main goals of Israel's defense policy have been developing a powerful deterrent and destroying the enemy's power even at the price of war. These goals dictated the foreign policy of the country obtaining weapons abroad and concluding an alliance with the U.S. Only after Egypt's Anwar Sadat declared that he wanted "no more war" could the Israeli foreign policy win its independence and launch the present peace process.