Avi Weiss is the President of the Taub Center for Social Policy Studies in Israel. He has been a member of the senior faculty of Bar-Ilan University since 1988 and served as Chair of the Economics Department (2005 and 2008). Weiss is the editor of The Economic Quarterly – the journal of the Israel Economic Association – and is an associate editor of Economic Inquiry. Weiss served as Chief Economist and Deputy General Director of the Israel Antitrust Authority (2003-2005) and has served as a member of several important governmental committees in Israel.
Our Voice of the Fortnight is from the Times of Israel's 'Wartime Diaries' podcast. In the immediate aftermath of October 7th, Shai Davidai – an Assistant Professor at Columbia University – became an unlikely public defender of Israel. And truthfully, even he was surprised by this turn of events: As a committed left-wing Israeli, he had spent years criticizing the government, and often took to the streets to demonstrate against its policies. But the atmosphere he witnessed on college campuses (and specifically on his own campus at Columbia), compelled him to speak up and speak out.