The 2026 Hertog Forum for National Security will be hosted by the Herut Center and Hudson Institute in Washington D.C. Planning has already begun and we are excited to continue the critical conversation.
Stay tuned for Hertog Forum community updates and events.
The Hertog Forum has become the premier international setting for conservative leadership in Israel and abroad to shape a realist grand strategy for Israeli national security.
Advisory Committee
Forum Management
The Herut Center is a non-profit ideas institution dedicated to cultivating conservative and Zionist leadership for Israel. The Herut Center operates a wide range of programs, publications, and events that engage the most fundamental dimensions of Israeli society – including national security, economics, governance, law, and the Haredi sector. To learn more about Herut Center click here.
Hudson Institute is a research organization promoting American Leadership for a secure, free, and prosperous future. Founded in 1961, Hudson Institute challenges conventional thinking and helps manage strategic transitions through interdisciplinary studies in defense, international relations, economics, energy, technology, culture, and law. To learn more about Hudson Institute click here.
Roger Hertog is co-chairman of the Jewish Leadership Conference, president of the Hertog Foundation and chairman emeritus of Tikvah. One of the founding partners of the investment, research and management firm Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., Hertog served as the firm’s president before its merger with Alliance Capital Management in 2000.
Martin Oliner is an attorney, businessman, and philanthropist with decades of leadership experience. He serves as Co-President of the Religious Zionists of America-Mizrachi and Chair of Israel Bonds New York Region. He is also Chairman and CEO of First Lincoln Holdings, specializing in legal and financial restructuring.
Sarah May Stern is chair of the Hudson Institute Board of Trustees
Ms. Stern is a graduate of Yale University and Harvard Business School. After working for several years at Newsweek, she moved to Commentary magazine. There, she served as business director until 2010, overseeing the magazine’s production, circulation, advertising, budget, and human-resources operations, taking a leading role in its 2007 reorganization as an independent non-profit, and serving on the Commentary board as treasurer and secretary.
Ms. Stern is a trustee of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a board member of the Winning for Women Action Fund, and a member of the Advisory Council of the Women’s Democracy Network. She serves as treasurer and a member of the board of the Main Idea, a residential summer camp for disadvantaged girls in Maine. She is a past president of the Edgemont Union Free School District in Scarsdale, New York.
Meir Ben-Shabbat served as Israel’s national security adviser and chief of staff for national security. He is also the former head of the southern region in the General Security Service. In December 2020, he received the U.S. Department of Defense’s Medal for Distinguished Public Service. He is a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies
Since 2012, Yitzhak Zivan has been studying math and politics. Prior to that, he worked in the diamond industry and played a key role in the computerization of the diamond business. He was born in Belgium in 1958 and made aliyah with his family in 1969. He attended national-religious schools and then served as an officer in the IDF armored corps. He published his first article in Hashiloach journal in February.
John P. Walters is president and chief executive officer of Hudson Institute.
From 2009 through 2020, Mr. Walters served as chief operating officer of Hudson, in which role he oversaw Hudson’s research staff and operations. He was appointed president and CEO in January 2021.
Mr. Walters also directs Hudson Institute Political Studies—an undergraduate summer fellowship program—and Hudson’s Center for Substance Abuse Policy Research. In addition, he was a member of the Independent Review Committee, hosted by Hudson Institute from 2019 to 2022 and established to advise the Attorney General and Congress on the implementation of criminal justice reform under the First Step Act.
From December 2001 to January 2009, Mr. Walters was director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) and a cabinet member during the Bush administration. As the nation’s “drug czar,” Mr. Walters guided all aspects of federal drug policy and programs—supporting efforts that drove down teen drug use 25 percent, increased substance abuse treatment and screening in the healthcare system, and dramatically dropped the availability of cocaine and methamphetamine in the US.
From 1996 until 2001, Mr. Walters served as president of the Philanthropy Roundtable, a national association of charitable foundations and individual donors. His prior government service included work at ONDCP, at its founding in 1989 as chief of staff, and later as deputy director of supply reduction. He was assistant to the secretary and chief of staff at the US Department of Education during the Reagan administration. He also served in the Division of Education Programs at the National Endowment for the Humanities from 1982 to 1985.
Mr. Walters has taught political science at Michigan State University’s James Madison College and at Boston College. He holds a BA from Michigan State University and an MA from the University of Toronto.
Amiad Cohen is CEO of the Herut Center, and the publisher of the Center’s Hebrew-language intellectual journal, Hashiloach. Herut is an ideas institution which supports programs and publications aimed at cultivating Israeli conservative political thought leadership in the areas of strategy, law, economics, and social cohesion. Under Cohen’s leadership, the Herut alumni community has grown to over 1,500 people, and the Center has launched major strategic projects including the Israeli Conservatism Conference and the Hertog Forum for National Security. Prior to Herut, Cohen specialized in municipal management in his hometown of Eli, as well as heading regional real estate and industrial development. He is also a partner in several business initiatives in the fields of security and technology.
Michael Doran is a senior fellow and director of the Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East at Hudson Institute. He specializes in Middle East security issues and co-hosts the Counterbalance podcast.
In the administration of President George W. Bush, Doran served in the White House as a senior director in the National Security Council, where he was responsible for helping to devise and coordinate United States strategies on a variety of Middle East issues, including Arab-Israeli relations and US efforts to contain Iran and Syria. He also served in the Bush administration as a senior advisor in the State Department and a deputy assistant secretary of defense in the Pentagon.
Born in Kokomo, Indiana, Doran went to elementary school in Carmel, outside of Indianapolis, before his family moved to Fullerton, California, where he graduated from Sunny Hills High School. He received a BA from Stanford University and an MA and PhD in Near Eastern studies from Princeton University.
Before coming to Hudson, Doran was a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. He has also held teaching positions at New York University, Princeton University, and the University of Central Florida. His latest book, Ike’s Gamble, was published by Free Press in 2016. He appears frequently on television, and has published extensively in Foreign Affairs, the American Interest, Commentary, Mosaic, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the New York Times.
Raphael has worked as a senior development manager in Israel’s non-profit sector for over a decade. A US-trained lawyer, he has extensive experience in the legal domain, public policy, journalism, and academia, and his work has been featured in the Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs, the Jerusalem Post, the Jewish Chronicle, and the Huffington Post. With an MA from Hebrew University in Political Science, Raphael is currently a PhD candidate at Bar Ilan University.
Abby Schultz is director of development at Hudson Institute. She has previously worked at Stand Together, the Heritage Foundation, and the Republican Jewish Coalition. She is a graduate of Hillsdale College with a bachelor’s degree in politics.
Matthew Hunter is vice president of strategic partnerships at Hudson Institute. A native of Los Angeles and a graduate of Occidental College, he received his MA from the University of Queensland in Australia where he wrote about the security relationship between Australia and the United States. He is a veteran of the development operation for the 2012 Mitt Romney presidential campaign and the Republican National Committee, where he handled defense policy issues as well as strategic communications.
David M. Weinberg is managing senior fellow at the Jerusalem-based Misgav Institute for National Security & Zionist Strategy; a fellow in the research department of Habithonistim: Israel’s Defense and Security Forum; and Israel Office Director of CIJA, Canada’s Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. He also is the veteran diplomatic and defense columnist for The Jerusalem Post and Israel Hayom newspapers. His columns over the past 28 years are archived at davidmweinberg.com. In past, he served as senior advisor to Deputy Israeli Prime Minister Natan Sharansky and founding coordinator of the Global Forum against Anti-Semitism in the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office.
Doron Spielman is the Special Advisor to the CEO of Herut Center.
He was previously the Vice President of the City of David and part of the senior management team for more than twenty years.
He currently serves as an IDF Spokesman to the Foreign Media with the rank of Major (res.) and has represented Israel in the Joint Military Task Force with the United States.
He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Michigan before making Aliya to Israel in the year 2000.
He is the founder of Spielman Dynamics, a strategic advisory firm that assists philanthropists to make a meaningful impact on Israeli society. He lives in Maale Adumim.
Hodaya Ovadya manages the CEO’s office and is responsible for Herut Center’s contacts in Israel.
In addition, Hodaya promotes the “Haredim for Politics” program of the Iyun Institute.
Hodaya has a BA in Social Sciences and Humanities from the Open University and is a Master’s student at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Zineb Riboua is a research fellow and program manager of Hudson Institute’s Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East. She specializes in China’s involvement in the Middle East, North African affairs, and Israeli-Arab relations.
Prior to joining Hudson Institute, Ms. Riboua was a research assistant at the Center for Jewish Civilization of Georgetown University for Professor Jessica Roda, where she worked on Jewish identity in Morocco, Moroccan-Israeli relations, and the cultural impacts of the Abraham Accords. She has held research positions at Morocco’s Ministry of Tourism, Ministry of Economy and Finance, and Bank Al-Maghrib.
Ms. Riboua’s pieces and commentary has been published in the Washington Examiner, the American Conservative, The Hill, the Jerusalem Post, Tablet Magazine, and other outlets.
Ms. Riboua is also an associate at the Association for Global Political Thought at Harvard University.
Ms. Riboua holds a master’s of public policy from the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University and a certificate in international relations and politics from Magdalene College, Cambridge University. She did her undergraduate studies in France, where she attended French preparatory classes and HEC Paris’ Grande Ecole program. Ms. Riboua is a native of Morocco, and she speaks Arabic and French.
Eitan Wachspress is the Director of Operations of Hashiloach, an organizer of the first Hertog Forum, and oversees the Hashiloach Frontlines online English publication. A former air traffic controller in the Israeli Air Force, Eitan is responsible for managing the operations of Hashiloach’s editorial board and its logistics.