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Avi was born in Jerusalem in 1960, son to an old Sephardic Jerusalemite family. After the army, where he served in a combat intelligence unit, Avi earned his B.A. in History and Middle Eastern Studies at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and later graduated the International Program for Conflict Resolution at The Leonard Davies Institute at George Mason University. In addition he is a graduate of the Program for Outstanding Leadership of the Carmel Institute for Military Research and a graduate of the Israeli Forum, a lay leadership program sponsored by the Jewish Agency for Israel.
After finishing his formal education, Mr. Melamed continued to work in the intelligence and counterterrorism arena in the West Bank. At the age of 30 he was appointed, the youngest-ever Deputy, and later Senior Advisor on Jerusalemite Arab Affairs to Mayor Teddy Kollek and to his successor, Mayor Ehud Olmert. After leaving the government, Avi entered the private sector where he founded Mikdam, a strategic consulting company on Arab affairs.
Believing he was an educator at heart, Avi then left the private sector to go teach High
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School, where he taught Arabic, Holocaust Studies, Middle Eastern Studies and History, among other subjects for seven years. During his tenure as a teacher, Avi began to believe that educators, once the moral compass for the State of Israel, were the ones to lead the country through the difficult times it was facing and counter the ever-growing leadership crisis which was threatening the fabric of Israeli society. This passion and commitment led him to found IDAN a non-profit grassroots initiative whose goal is to encourage and empower educators to confront the leadership crisis Israeli society is threatened by. Avi is a sought-after lecturer in Israel and abroad and his broad and varied experience from intelligence to counterterrorism to Arab and Middle East affairs to entrepreneurship, education, leadership development and social action, coupled with his charisma and intelligence make every encounter fascinating and his geo-strategic analysis captivating.
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| Avi works as lecturer for a wide range of organizations including: |
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The World Bank Board of Directors |
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Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs |
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The Israel Project (TIP) |
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United Jewish Communities (UJC) - USA and Israel |
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Canada Israel Committee (CIC) |
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YPO (Young Presidents Organization) |
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Herzeliya Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) |
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Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA) |
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The Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) |
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Jerusalem Foundation |
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The Ministry of Defense |
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Israel Border Police Senior Command |
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The Peres Center for Peace |
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| Publications: |
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Avi has published several articles and publications, including Separate and Unequal: The Inside Story of Israeli Rule in East Jerusalem,( published by Harvard University Press, 1999)
interviews: Foreign Media interviews Include: Al Jazeera, Alhurra, Wall Street Journal, ABC, L.A. Times, BBC (Arabic) TVE and more. Avi is fluent in Hebrew, English and Arabic.
Avi lives on Kibbutz Giv'aat Chayim Ichud is the father to Sapir (girl) and Nimrod (boy) and married to Maia Hoffman, Director of Missions and Israel Projects for The Jewish Federation in Baltimore.
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