Discussing his latest book, acclaimed Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz will speak on campus this Sunday as part of the annual Jewish Cultural Weekend. The Jewish Student Union organized the event with the help of The Curriculum Initiative, an organization that educates schoolteachers on Jewish approaches to teaching ethics. Jewish Student Union Co-President Ilana Segall ’04 is looking forward to the event. “This will be a great opportunity for the entire community at Phillips Academy, both students and faculty. Alan Dershowitz is a very prominent figure in the world,” Segall said. She continued, “Among other things, he represented O.J. Simpson in his infamous trial, and I hear he is a very compelling speaker.” The topic of his speech this Sunday will be his most recent book, “The Case for Israel,” which was published in August 2003. In “The Case for Israel,” Mr. Dershowitz presents a pro-active defense of 32 accusations made against the state of Israel. For each accusation, he divides his argument into three parts: The Accusers, The Reality, and The Proof. Examining the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with lawyerly-thoroughness, Mr. Dershowitz vehemently defends the right of Israel to exist and to protect its citizens from terrorism. However, he does not defend every policy or action of the Israeli Government. Challenging myths such as “Were Jews a Minority in What Became Israel?,” Mr. Dershowitz defends Israel and supports himself with thoroughly researched evidence. Mr. Dershowitz has been accused of exhibiting a pro-Israeli bias in his writing, but the case he presents is strongly substantiated. He suggests a moderate two-state solution throughout the book. Mr. Dershowitz was born in the Orthodox Jewish community of Borough Park in Brooklyn, New York. His background has influenced issues about which he has become passionate. At Yale Law School, he was first in his class and Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Law Journal. He was appointed to the Harvard Law faculty at age 25 and became a full professor at age 28, the youngest in the school’s history. He has taught courses in criminal law, psychiatry and law, constitutional litigation, civil liberties and violence, comparative criminal law, legal ethics and human rights. Newsweek described Alan Dershowitz, still a practicing lawyer, as “the nation’s most peripatetic civil liberties lawyer and one of its most distinguished defenders of individual rights.” His former clients include O.J. Simpson, Mike Tyson, Penthouse, various death row inmates, and several Senators and lawyers. A respected author, Mr. Dershowitz has published books and articles on a wide variety of social, legal, and ethical topics. More than 400 of his articles have appeared in over 50 United States daily newspapers, including The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Herald, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and The Chicago Sun Times. His essay
