Join award-winning journalist and filmmaker Shlomi Eldar and former head Israeli intelligence official Dr. Yuval Biton for a conversation about the impact of Yahya Sinwar’s leadership on Hamas.
Sinwar is the current leader of Hamas in Gaza and a member of its Politburo since 2017. He has been designated a global terror threat by the U.S. Department of State and is widely thought to be one of the masterminds behind the October 7 terror attack in Israel.
Eldar is a journalist and documentary filmmaker who has spent more than 30 years covering Gaza, Hamas, and the Palestinian Authority. Dr. Biton knows Sinwar personally. While the Hamas leader was serving a 20+ year sentence in an Israeli prison, Dr. Biton was on the medical team that removed his brain tumor — and he has spent many, many hours with the Hamas leader over the years. On October 7, Hamas kidnapped and murdered Dr. Biton’s nephew.
The event will be moderated by Glenn Dynner, director of the Bennett Center at Fairfield University. This program is presented in partnership with the Bennett Center and the Jewish Federation of Greater Fairfield County.
Registration is required to attend this event. You can register at the button above.
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Shlomi Eldar is a journalist and documentary filmmaker. For the past three decades, he has covered the Palestinian Authority and the Gaza Strip for Israel’s Channels 1 and 10. During this time, he reported on the emergence of Hamas, from its inception to the mass social and political movement that would eventually come to power in Gaza. In 2007, he was awarded the prestigious Sokolov Prize, Israel’s most important media award, for this work.
Eldar has published two books: Eyeless in Gaza (2005), which anticipated the Hamas victory in the forthcoming Palestinian elections, and Getting to Know Hamas (2012). In 2010, Eldar directed the documentary film Precious Life, which was shortlisted for an Oscar and won the Ophir Award, the Israeli Oscar for documentary filmmaking. In 2017, he directed Foreign Land, another Ophir award winner, and in 2021 he released his third documentary, Riding with a Spy. A new book, Hamas: From Welfare Organization to War Crimes, will be published in March 2024. Eldar has an MA in Middle Eastern Studies from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Dr. Yuval Biton retired from the Israeli Prison Service after more than 25 years of service. His roles there included deputy commander of the central district of the Israeli Prison Service, head of the Israel Prison Service Intelligence Division, head of the intelligence collection department, head of the research and assessment department, head of the terrorism branch in the intelligence division, and intelligence officer of Ketziot Prison.
Glenn Dynner PhD is the Carl and Dorothy Bennett Professor of Judaic Studies and director of the Bennett Center at Fairfield University; editor of the journal Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies; and a recent Guggenheim Fellow. He is author of Men of Silk: The Hasidic Conquest of Polish Jewish Society (Oxford University Press, 2006), and Yankel’s Tavern: Jews, Liquor & Life in the Kingdom of Poland (Oxford University Press, 2014). His new book is entitled The Light of Learning: Hasidism in Poland on the Eve of the Holocaust (Oxford University Press, 2024).
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Pictured above, L to R: Shlomi Eldar and Yuval Biton
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