Menu
Menu
Menu
We are currently finalizing our 2024 program. Please check back for updates.
As the United States Ambassador to Israel from March 2017 until January 2021, Ambassador David Friedman successfully guided unprecedented diplomatic advancements in the US – Israel relationship, including moving the United States Embassy to Jerusalem and recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. He also is among a small group of American officials responsible for the “Abraham Accords” — peace and normalization agreements between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco — for which he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021.
Ambassador Friedman was recognized in each of the past five years by the Jerusalem Post as one of the 50 most influential Jews in the world, coming in first in 2020. He also was named one of the 20 Most Impactful Persons of the Past Decade by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Ambassador Friedman was honored by President Trump with the National Security Medal in September 2020 – less than 100 Americans have received that award in its history — and by the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff with the Meritorious Civilian Service Medal in April 2019. He has received numerous other honors, recognitions and awards including honorary doctorates from Yeshiva University in New York and Ariel University in the Shomron.
Ambassador Friedman is the Founder of The Friedman Center for Peace through Strength which works to build upon the Ambassador’s achievements in strengthening the US-Israel relationship. On February 8, 2022, HarperCollins published Ambassador Friedman’s memoir, Sledgehammer: How Breaking with the Past Brought Peace to the Middle East. In its first week, Sledgehammer broke sales records for a book on the State of Israel.
Shmuel Hain is a pulpit rabbi and educator. Under his leadership, YIOZ of North Riverdale/ Yonkers has transformed into a vibrant community synagogue. He also serves as Rosh Beit Midrash at SAR High School, where he directs the Beit Midrash Fellowship, teaches advanced Judaic Studies classes, and co-directs Machon Siach- a research insititute for Jewish educators. During the summer he is Rav Machaneh (Camp Rabbi) of Camp Moshava- Indian Orchard.
Rabbi Hain was awarded the Daniel Jeremy Silver Fellowship at Harvard University’s Center for Jewish Studies (CJS) for the 2020-2021 academic year and continued as a Visiting Scholar and Lecturer at the CJS in 2021-2022. He has authored and edited several volumes of Torah and academic scholarship, including two volumes in The Orthodox Forum series. Rabbi Hain was an inaugural fellow of the Bella and Harry Wexner Kollel Elyon at RIETS, where he was ordained in 2001 and where he taught advanced Talmud classes to semikha and undergraduate students from 2000-2012.
Dr. Steven Dyckman obtained his under-graduate degree from Yeshiva University. He then attended George Washington University Medical School, Washington, DC, where he received his Doctor of Medicine. He completed a residency and fellowship in Adult and Child Psychiatry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He has been serving as a School Psychiatrist for more than 15 school systems in Central NJ.
Dr. Dyckman is also an Associate Professor of Child Psychiatry at Seton Hall University. He is on staff and works as a consultant in child psychiatry at the Neuroscience Institute at JFK Medical Center, where he helps train pediatric neurology residents. Dr. Dyckman is a nationally recognized speaker on topics such as ADHD in children and adults and Major Depression and Sleep Disorders. He has delivered more than 100 talks on these topics throughout the United States and has been interviewed numerous times on television and radio. He is a member of and a speaker for the Medical Board of New Jersey Obsessive Compulsive Foundation. Dr. Dyckman is currently in private practice in East Brunswick and Shrewsbury, NJ. He lives in East Brunswick, NJ with his wife, who is an occupational therapist, their 3 sons and Teddy, their Standard Poodle.
