Draft:David Mittelberg

David Mittelberg (born March 14, 1947, 24th of Adar, 5707),  Professor Emeritus of Sociology, researcher , author ,  lecturer, currently serves as board member and Research Fellow at the Oranim Research Authority. He formerly served as chairman of the steering committee of the International School and as Head of the Sociology Department at Oranim College.

Biography
Born in 1947 in Germany to Holocaust survivor parents from the Warsaw Ghetto, Richard (Israel Yaacov) and Leah Mittelberg. At the age of one, he moved with his parents to reside in Melbourne, Australia.

After marrying Shoshana Kotlar in 1971, the couple immigrated to Israel together with members of the Ichud Habonim Zionist youth Movement to Kibbutz Yizre'el. He studied and completed his undergraduate studies at Monash University, a Masters degree at the University of Haifa, and PhD at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Career and Public Activities:
Active in Monash Student politics 1967 -1970 elected, to MAS Student Council on Democratic socialist ticket (see Mendes 1993). Engaged with New Left and founded with others the Radical Zionist Alliance, which was active both on campus and in wider Jewish student community.

Active as student leader in struggle For Freedom of Soviet Jewry.

In 1971, he was elected as a delegate of the Labour Zionist Movement of Australian Jewry to the 28th World Zionist Congress in Jerusalem, held at the beginning of 1972. At that time, January 6 1972, Mittelberg emigrated from Australia to Kibbutz Yizrael in Israel with his wife Shoshana.

After seven years working in the kibbutz orchard and part-time in academia, he served as the world secretary of the Ichud Habonim Movement from 1979-1980. During his tenure, he made the decision to merge the Ichud Habonim Zionist Youth Movement and Dror, forming Habonim Dror (the merger then took about three years to complete). During this time, he also served as a member of the secretariat of the Ichud Kibbutz Movement, which later merged with the Kibbutz Hameuchad Movement to form the United Kibbutz Movement (Takam).

In 1975, he joined the Institute for Kibbutz Research at the University of Haifa as a research fellow and was appointed head of the institute in 1985, a position he held until 1989. From 1985, he served as a lecturer in a joint appointment at the Sociology Department at the University of Haifa and Oranim College.

In 1989-1990, he spent a sabbatical year at Harvard University in Boston, in the Sociology Department and in the Kibbutz Studies Project at the Harvard Center for Jewish Studies. During this year, he convened a research conference on the Israel Experience with researchers from Israel and the United States.

In 2006-2007, he spent a sabbatical year at the Cohen Center, Brandeis University.

In 2014-2015, he spent sabbatical at Australian Centre for Jewish Civilization, Monash University in Australia. Throughout these years, Mittelberg continued to teach at Oranim College.

From 2015-2019, he served as founding chairman of the Steering committee at the International School at Oranim College.

Since 2018, Mittelberg continues to serve as a member of Board and Research Fellow at the Research Authority at Oranim College.

Over the years, Mittelberg has published five books and numerous articles on topics such as ethnicity, migration , gender , tourism , Kibbutz education , education for Jewish Peoplehood and the sociology of Diaspora Jewry. Mittelberg also served as a visiting lecturer at Harvard University, Brandeis University, and Monash University.

Public Activities:
In 1985-86, Mittelberg took part in establishing The Israeli Forum and served as a member of its foundation Board. He continued as a board member until 1996 when he concluded his tenure as acting chairman.

Within the forum's activities, he was involved in two main projects:


 * Project Otzma - David Mittelberg participated in the founding committee that planned and implemented Project Otzma in 1986, established by the Israeli Forum in cooperation with the Council of Jewish Federations. This program was designed for Jewish American students who come to Israel for a year of volunteering.
 * Project Kehillot - Mittelberg was the founding chairman of the Project Kehillot, twinned communities Project in 1992. The project aimed at creating direct Jewish connections between communities, not just individuals, such as the partnership between Boston and Haifa.

In 1986, together with Professor Moshe Kerem, Mittelberg founded Project Oren, Kibbutz Institutes for Jewish Experience, at Oranim. The establishment of the "Oren Project" at Oranim College (1986-87), aimed at providing a Jewish-Israeli experience for Jewish youth from the diaspora to strengthen their Jewish identity and their connection to Israel. The "Oren Project" offered diverse programs for Jewish education to Jewish students aged 18 and above from English-speaking countries, conducted in six different kibbutzim, twice a year. These programs comprised three main components: Hebrew studies, work on the kibbutz, and Education enrichment in their native language. The "Oren Project" hosted a wide range of Israeli experience activities in English and Russian for 25 years, involving over 10,000 participants from the diaspora.

Holocaust Remembrance Activities
As the son of Holocaust survivors in Melbourne, Australia, David regularly participated in communal and Movement Holocaust commemoration ceremonies, representing the second generation, including at the Melbourne Jewish community commemoration in 1971. Subsequently, he was engaged in academic research on the impact of the Holocaust on the second generation of Holocaust survivors, as well as in the publication of a family memorial book spanning three generations in English and Hebrew, called "Between Two Worlds - The Testimony and the Testament".

This activity continued at the International Conference of Holocaust Survivors in Israel in 1981. Mittelberg delivered the Key Note presentation lecture at the International Holocaust Day Commemoration at the Holocaust Museum in Melbourne in January 2015.

In addition he has over several years, jointly facilitated with his daughter, Shuli Mittelberg-Hasheli, “Zicharon Be Salon” memorial evenings in Zoom events during the COVID-19 pandemic, and also face-to-face, in Kibbutz Yizre'el in 2023.

Research Areas:
Over the years, Mittelberg has focused on several research areas:


 * 1) The Kibbutz:
 * 2) Volunteers in Israeli kibbutzim, a decade of research from the 1970s to the 1980s, culminating in his book "Strangers In Paradise", published in 1988.
 * 3) The emigration from Israel of kibbutz born members  . Both studies dealt with identity and emigration issues on a global scale, from Israel to the world and immigration to Israel from throughout the world.
 * 4) Israel Experience Programs and Jewish Peoplehood Education:
 * 5) Published a policy paper on visiting Israel and Jewish identity, commissioned by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) in 1994, five years before the Birthright program's establishment. He emphasized the need to bring young, unmarried Jews aged 18-34 who had never visited Israel for their first visit and argued that participants must receive financial support in order to enable the trip.
 * 6) Research on the inaugural year of the innovative "Otzma Project" in 1986-87, involving 53 American college age volunteer Jewish participants who came to Israel for a year-long program focusing on developing young leadership and volunteering in Israel, to be followed by continued Jewish community engagement upon their return to their home communities. Subsequently, he conducted a follow-up study on Project Otzma alumni in the USA was published in 1999 . The Otzma  project continued for 27 years, engaging around 1,500 alumni, until it was closed as an independent project under the auspices of the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) in 2012.
 * 7) Research on the 'Project Oren' programs amongst diverse populations such as: Jewish students from abroad, Families from the Diaspora, Russian speakers from Israel and abroad, Mifgash encounter programs between Israeli and Diaspora Jewish students, Taglit Birthright, Israeli and Diaspora student participants, Jewish educators from Israel and abroad.
 * 8) Author of the book "The Israel Connection and American Jews" (1999), which analyzed different Israel Experience and Jewish Peoplehood educational programs. A central insight of the book was that it was possible to achieve educational impact through visits to Israel among adults over the age of 18 and not just among school children, as testified by the book's reviewer,. " David Mittelberg, author of The Israel Connection and American Jews, was not the progenitor of birthright israel, but his monograph makes clear why the program was needed and why it is has been so successful. (Saxe  2002 :185)
 * 9) Joint research with Brandeis University regarding the school twinning program between Boston and Haifa  within the framework of Partnership 2000 (2011, 2013).
 * 10) Education Research and Teacher Training:
 * 11) Gender and Mathematics - An international research collaboration addressing differences in mathematics achievements between boys and girls, Jews and Arabs, in Israel and Australia, and the reasons for these differences.
 * 12) Inclusion in Education - Collaborative research focusing on teachers’  inclusion strategies in school and teacher education programs in Israel