Mordechai Zaken also Moti Zaken (Hebrew: מוטי/מרדכי זקן; Arabic: مردخاي زاكين) (April 26, 1958 – May 14, 2021)[1] was a historian and the 2019 laureate of "the Prime Minister Prize for the research of the Jews of the Orient."[2][3][4] He was an expert on the Kurds and Middle Eastern minorities both as academic – he was historian of the Jews, the Kurds in Kurdistan[5] and as professional - serving as the advisor on Israeli Arabs and minorities to the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu (1997–1999), and to the Ministry of Public Security from 2001.[6]
Zaken earned his BA, MA, cum laude, and PhD (2003) in Islamic Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He studied as well in the US in both SUNY Binghamton and New York University (1987-1990). Among his influential teachers were Moshe Sharon,[7] Benjamin Z. Kedar and the late semitic linguist Gideon Goldenberg, with whom he published the Book of Ruth in Neo-Aramaic.[8] He published another Neo-Aramaic text in a book honoring Goldenberg's jubilee.[9]
On 6 March 2019, he was announced as the laureate of "the Prime Minister Prize for the Empowerment of the research of the Jews of the Orient and Iran."[10][11]
The severe dearth of written sources on Kurdistan, drove him as a student to embark on oral history fieldwork research, conducting altogether hundreds of in-depth oral interviews with more than sixty elderly Jewish Kurdish informants, whose excellent memory was the product of oral culture. He thus saved their memories from being lost forever.[12] This study forms a new set of historical records. His book on the Jews and the tribal Kurdish society has received wide attention and commended even in its Arabic translation, published in Beirut, as an "innovation,"[13][14][15][16][17][18] and has been translated as well into Kurdish, in both Sorani and Kurmanji, Persian and French.[19][20][21]
As advisor to the Prime Minister on Arab affairs at the Prime Minister ministry (May 1997 – November 1999) he was engaged in the complex relations between the government and the communities of minorities. In 2016, within the Public Security Ministry, he formed a new governmental forum for dialogue with local Arab leaders.[22][23][24][25][26]
As an advisor on minorities to both the prime minister and the ministry of Public Security[27][28][29][30][31] he has been standing up against hate crimes.[32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46]
In 2013 he initiated with Christian leaders the Government – Christians Forum that addresses the concerns of the Evangelical Christian community vis a vis the government.[47][48][49][50][51] Two prominent Christian leaders in this forum have been Rev. Charles (Chuck) Kopp, of the Baptist Church and Rev. David Pillegi, Rector of the Christ Church in Jaffa Gate.[33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][52][53]
In 1993, he founded the Israeli-Kurdistan Friendship League, possibly the first friendship association between Jews and any community in the Arab states, together with Moshe Zaken and Meir Baruch, Michael Niebur and Mathew B. Hand, the last two with whom he edited the newsletter Yedidut.[54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63]
In October 2012 he visited Kurdistan at the invitation of the World Kurdish Forum and in October 2013 participated in, and delivered a presentation for this forum that was held in Stockholm, Sweden.[64]
He was the coordinator of the third Ministerial Committee set to resolve the dispute between Muslims and Christians in Nazareth regarding a dispute near the Basilica of the Annunciation, a dispute that concerned leaders throughout the world, such as the US president George W. Bush and the Pope John Paul. The daily presence of Muslim activists in the plaza near the old mosque, known as "Shihab al-Din," became an obstacle for the plan to build an open plaza for the historical visit of the Pope John Paul II in the year 2000.[65][66][67][68] He constructed the final draft for the cabinet resolution,[69] which was used by the State Attorney in the Supreme Court to repel the appeal against the government, in the years 2001–2003.[70][71]
Zaken served as the last National Director of ISFI, or "The Institute of Students and Faculty on Israel," in New York, an organization under the auspices of the Israeli Foreign Ministry and the Israeli Consulate in New York City (1989–1991). ISFI provided political and cultural resources, ideas and tools, for Jewish and pro-Israel student activists throughout the US and Canada, through which Israeli oriented activities and the message of Israel could be promoted in US campuses.
In 1982, as Chief-Editor of the students' newspaper at the Hebrew University Pi-Ha'aton (פי האתון) ("The donkey's mouth", taken from the Book of Numbers, 22:28), one of his main journalistic achievements was the unearthing of an old photograph from 1948, taken by Arabs and showing mutilated faces and bodies of Jewish soldiers that were part of an army unit that later became known as "Nabi Daniel Caravan" (שיירת נבי דניאל). He published the photograph and the story behind its discovery in a special Independence Day Edition, on 26 April 1982. He was also the Co-Chief editor of "Tipul Shoresh" (Heb.,root canal treatment) an annual newspaper of the public activists' program at the Hebrew University, the circulation of which was stopped by the directors and university administration, due to its critical approach towards the university policy regarding social issues.[72] As a scholar, Zaken has been a frequent guest in radio and TV programs, speaking mostly on the Kurds and the minorities in the Middle East, and has been interviewed by newspapers as an expert on these subjects.[73][74][75][76][77]
He also spoke in public on these topics.[78][79][80][81][82][83][84][85][86][87][88][89][90][91][92][93][94][95][96][97][98][99][100][101][102][103][104][105]
