Hillel Newman, the Israeli consul to New England in Boston, will offer a lecture titled "Prospects for Peace in the Middle East: After Arafat" at 4 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 8, in Chase Hall Lounge, Bates College, Campus Avenue. Sponsored by the Harward Center for Community Partnerships, the event is free and open to the public. For more information, please call 207-786-6195.

From 1992 to 1998, Newman taught history at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan outside of Tel Aviv, concurrently serving as director of the Center for Research at Bar-Ilan University’s Yad Ben Zvi during the middle years of his tenure there. He recently returned to academia as an adjunct associate professor at the Center for Judaic Studies at Boston University. 

Since leaving Bar-Ilan University, Newman served as assistant to foreign minister David Levy from 1999 to 2000, and as policy adviser to Israeli President Moshe Katsav in 2000-01. Appointed consul of Israel to New England in November 2001, Newman also served for brief periods in Athens, Greece; Ankara, Turkey; and Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

Newman served as a paramedic in the Israel Defense Force from 1982 to 1986. Following his military service, he went on to study at Bar-Ilan University, where he earned a B.A. in psychology and history and later a Ph.D. in history.  In his dissertation, he compared the sectarianism of the Hellenistic and Roman periods to the current political situation in Israel.