Tel Aviv University is unveiling the new home of the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Ethics at the new Buchmann Building serving the Buchmann Faculty of Law. The attractive venue will provide space for scholars and students to debate, exchange ideas, and forge novel research directions and collaborations.
The Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Ethics isn’t about practical policy-making or quick fixes. Its core focus lies in theoretical, multidisciplinary research on democracy’s fundamental questions, says Prof. Issachar Rosen-Zvi, the head of the Center.
“Every year, we have between 8 and 12 post-doctoral researchers and another two or three doctoral students who stay with us for a full year. They write their articles and their books under the framework of a broader theme: the challenges of democracy,” he says.
The range of disciplines involved is impressively broad, including political science, sociology, law, history, economics and humanities. “We also give our researchers a special academic training program where they learn together from experts in different fields,” notes Prof. Rosen-Zvi.
The generous contribution by the Edmond J. Safra Foundation is enabling the Center to significantly expand its activities and global impact; provide a stimulating environment for the Center’s public and international events, which bring together researchers, experts and stakeholders from Israel and around the world for robust dialogue; and further reinforce the cherished, decades-long partnership between the Foundation and Tel Aviv University.
The Center runs workshops, guest lectures, reading groups, and a colloquium where fellows present their work to both peers and faculty. But until now, physical limitations made it difficult to hold these important meetings.
“We had to use the Law Faculty’s space reserves,” says Prof. Rosen-Zvi, “Fellows sat in cubicles. We had to hold seminars and colloquiums in rooms that were available, but only when undergraduate and graduate students didn’t need them. That’s not sustainable.”
The move to a dedicated facility changes everything, he explains. “Now we’ll have offices for our students and post-docs and a dedicated seminar room where we’ll hold the colloquiums, guest lectures, and workshops. It will be our own space. That’s a wonderful new world.”
The impact of that change isn’t merely logistical — it’s philosophical. “We’ll be able to demand more from our fellows. Because now they’ll have space, and more reason to come. Moreover, when everyone sits in one place, it becomes easier to cultivate the academic community we all want. Informal meetings — in offices, in a café — those matter a lot for intellectual development.”
Prof. Rosen-Zvi makes it clear: this isn’t about optics. “It’s not just convenience, and it’s not just prestige. It has academic importance of the first order. We will have a permanent gathering place — my office will be there too — and I’ll see everyone much more. That means informal and formal meetings will become more frequent. That’s vital.”
Democracy in Crisis
Asked whether the current political unrest in Israel makes the Center’s mission more urgent, Prof. Rosen-Zvi doesn’t hesitate. “Government institutions matter. Their construction, their bureaucratization, how they operate — if they can be immune, at least partially, from politics, that’s hugely important. Look at the institution of the Attorney General, or legal advisors in ministries, or the Bank of Israel — places with a measure of independence. These norms and organizational cultures are critical.
“You can’t just chase the here and now, like what amendment can fix this or that institution. We have to think big about liberal democracy – about the crisis we’re in now, which is global. We see it in Europe, the US, and also here. But at the same time, it has local characteristics.”
Prof. Rosen-Zvi says understanding those nuances is a core part of the Center’s mission. “In the US and Israel, we see similar retreats, but the institutions are different. The legal systems are different. The economies are different. You can’t treat them the same way. So we try to understand the phenomena, both globally and locally.”
The Center’s international composition helps. “We have both Israeli and foreign fellows. They come from all over the world,” he says. “We’re trying to think about these questions in an integrative way — the norms of democracy, what’s happening to them, and the fate of democratic institutions. That’s our work.”
With the new building nearing completion, the Center is poised to elevate its work to a new level. But more than that, it’s primed to embody — spatially and intellectually — the kind of thoughtful democratic practice it studies.
“It’s not just a physical place,” Prof. Rosen-Zvi concludes. “It’s a space for thinking. For dialogue. For people. And for ideas that matter.” This article was written in collaboration with Tel Aviv University.