The Ingeborg Rennert Center for Jerusalem Studies

Organisation profile

The Ingeborg Rennert Center for Jerusalem Studies (http://jerusalem-studies.com//) was founded in 1995 under the auspices of the Martin (Szusz) Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology in the Faculty of Jewish Studies of Bar-Ilan University. The Rennert Center, under the directorship of Prof. Joshua Schwartz, deals with the study and research of all aspects of Jerusalem from ancient until modern times.

One of the most prominent activities of the Rennert Center in the study of Jerusalem is the annual conference "New Studies on Jerusalem" which has become one of the foremost means of publicizing new studies and research on Jerusalem. These conferences usually host 20 or so lecturers and attract hundreds of participants. The proceedings are published in book form as "New Studies in Jerusalem".

The Rennert Center publishes the journal "Jerusalem and the Land of Israel" as well as many books. The Rennert Center also maintains a partnership with Katholieke Universiteit te Utrecht and has sponsored a number of international conferences with this institution, in both Holland and Israel, and publishes a book series together with KTU te Utrecht at E.J. Brill, Leiden called "Jewish and Christian Perspectives" (http://www.biu.ac.il/JS/rennert/jcp/).

The Rennert Center is also active in additional research projects related to Jerusalem, its history and archaeology.

The Rennert Center is involved in outreach and public policy and awards each year the Guardian of Zion Award to an outstanding individual whose life-work has made a lasting contribution to fostering the spirit of Jerusalem and to the strengthening of Jerusalem as the eternal capital of the Jewish people. Among the recipients so far are Nobel Prize Laureate Prof. Elie Wiesel, scholars Prof. Sir Martin Gilbert and Prof. Ruth Roskies Wisse, authors Herman Wouk and Cynthia Ozick, movie producer Arthur Cohn and journalists A. M. Rosenthal, Dr. Charles Krauthammer and William Safire. The recipient of the Guardian of Zion Award for 2006 is Dr. Daniel Pipes.