Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus is the Head of the International Media Branch of the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, which means that he is the IDF’s Spokesman to the world. Lt Col Conricus is responsible for the public affairs and public diplomacy of the IDF, in traditional as well as in social media, and leads a team of more than 50 highly talented Israeli men and women. After making aliyah at the age of 13, Lt. Col Conricus has been serving in the IDF for 20 years in various capacities, including combat experience from Lebanon and Gaza as a Platoon and Company commander, while focusing the majority of his military service on international relations and military diplomacy. Lt. Col Conricus is married and blessed with four children.
Dr.Martin Kramer, American-Israeli scholar of the Middle East
researches and interprets the history and politics of the Middle East, contemporary Islam, and modern Israel.
He was the founding president of Shalem College in Jerusalem, Israel’s first liberal arts college, where he continues to teach the modern history of the Middle East. Kramer is also the Koret distinguished fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
He earned his undergraduate and doctoral degrees in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University, where he prepared his thesis under the supervision of Bernard Lewis. He then spent twenty-five years at Tel Aviv University, where he directed the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies. Kramer has taught as a visiting professor at Brandeis University, the University of Chicago, Cornell University, Georgetown University, and The Johns Hopkins University (SAIS). He has also served as a visiting fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington and Harvard University’s Olin Institute for Strategic Studies.
Kramer’s authored and edited books include Islam Assembled; Shi’ism, Resistance and Revolution; Middle Eastern Lives; Arab Awakening and Islamic Revival; The Islamism Debate; The Jewish Discovery of Islam; Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America, and The War on Error: Israel, Islam, and the Middle East.