Daniel Doron
Encyclopedia
Daniel Doron is an Israeli publicist and political activist. He is the founder and director of the Israel Center for Social and Economic Progress
Israel Center for Social and Economic Progress
The Israel Center for Social and Economic Progress is an independent pro-market public policy thinktank founded in 1983 by Daniel Doron to promote basic structural reform in Israel's economy. Its British Friends include members of the Jewish-British community such as Gerald Ronson and Barry Townsley...

 (ICSEP). In this capacity, he has recommended economic changes to the Israeli government, some of which have successfully been implemented. He has written extensively on the advantages of free market economics in publications including the Wall Street Journal and the Jerusalem Post. For the latter, he serves as a regular columnist on economic matters. He has also translated free market texts into Hebrew.

Early life

Daniel Doron is a third-generation sabra
Sabra (person)
Sabra is a term used to describe a Jew born in Israeli territory; the term is also usually inclusive of Jews born during the period of the establishment of the state of Israel. The word "sabra" is Arabic and Hebrew. Immigrants to Palestine began using it in the early 1930s, according to the The...

 whose great-grandfather, Zorach Barnett, was one of the first Jewish pioneers prior to the first modern aliyah. He came to what was then Ottoman Turkish territory from England in 1870.

After serving in Air Force Intelligence during the Israeli War for Independence
1948 Arab-Israeli War
The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, known to Israelis as the War of Independence or War of Liberation The war commenced after the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine and the creation of an independent Israel at midnight on 14 May 1948 when, following a period of civil war, Arab armies invaded...

 and studying sociology and economics at the Hebrew University , Daniel Doron pursued a career in literature, journalism and government. He served under Teddy Kollek
Teddy Kollek
Theodor "Teddy" Kollek was mayor of Jerusalem from 1965 to 1993, and founder of the Jerusalem Foundation. Kollek was re-elected five times, in 1969, 1973, 1978, 1983 and 1989...

, then director-general of the Prime Minister's Office. In 1957, Doron was delegated by the Prime Minister's Office to serve as special consultant to the US Embassy in Tel Aviv.

Becoming a Public Intellectual

In the sixties, Daniel Doron resumed his studies as a Fellow of the University of Chicago's Committee on Social Thought
Committee on Social Thought
The Committee on Social Thought is one of several PhD-granting committees at the University of Chicago. It was started in 1941 by historian John Ulric Nef along with economist Frank Knight, anthropologist Robert Redfield, and University President Robert Maynard Hutchins.The committee is...

, and then with Lionel Trilling
Lionel Trilling
Lionel Trilling was an American literary critic, author, and teacher. With wife Diana Trilling, he was a member of the New York Intellectuals and contributor to the Partisan Review. Although he did not establish a school of literary criticism, he is one of the leading U.S...

 and Jacques Barzuz
Jacques Barzun
Jacques Martin Barzun is a French-born American historian of ideas and culture. He has written on a wide range of topics, but is perhaps best known as a philosopher of education, his Teacher in America being a strong influence on post-WWII training of schoolteachers in the United...

 as a Visiting Scholar at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

. His exposure to economist Milton Friedman
Milton Friedman
Milton Friedman was an American economist, statistician, academic, and author who taught at the University of Chicago for more than three decades...

, Friedrich Hayek
Friedrich Hayek
Friedrich August Hayek CH , born in Austria-Hungary as Friedrich August von Hayek, was an economist and philosopher best known for his defense of classical liberalism and free-market capitalism against socialist and collectivist thought...

 and other free market intellectual forces at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

 greatly influenced him. Later, the philosophies Doron acquired in the United States would lead him to push for free market changes in Israel's anti-competitive, socialist society and economy.

He also served on an economic advisory group for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and on the Israel Government Council for National and Economic Planning, was a member of the Board of the Entrepreneurial Center of Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv University is a public university located in Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel. With nearly 30,000 students, TAU is Israel's largest university.-History:...

, and is a member of the Mont-Pelerin Society
Mont Pelerin Society
The Mont Pelerin Society is an international organization composed of economists , philosophers, historians, intellectuals, business leaders, and others who favour classical liberalism...

. Doron was among the founders of The Herzliyah Conference
Herzliya conference
The Herzliya Conference, hosted by the Interdisciplinary Center at Herzliya, is Israel's center stage for the articulation of national policy by its most prominent leaders, including the Israeli President, the Prime Minister, the IDF Chief of General Staff, and the leading contenders for high...

, served on its Steering Committee and initiated its economic segment.

Activist

Since 1973, Daniel Doron has been involved in political and economic reform in Israel. He helped to found the Shinui (Change) political party
Shinui
Shinui is a Zionist, secular and anti-clerical free market liberal party and political movement in Israel. The party twice became the third largest in the Knesset, but both occasions were followed by a split and collapse; in 1977 the party won 15 seats as part of the Democratic Movement for...

 which succeeded in gaining a foothold in the Israeli Parliament (the Knesset).

In 1983, Doron began devoting his time to the Israel Center for Social and Economic Progress (ICSEP). A non-profit organization, it seeks to make recommendations to the Israeli government to increase the competitiveness of the Israeli economy. ICSEP conducts regular seminars for top Israeli university students to study free market economics, experiences that may otherwise not be available to them. ICSEP employs respected Israeli economic thinkers to examine Israeli markets in search of anti-competitive inefficiencies and works to make the public aware of such circumstances.

ICSEP and Daniel Doron succeeded in recommending to then Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu that Israeli banks needed to be barred from the Israeli capital market in order for the capital markets to grow and mature. The Israeli Knesset later passed the Bachar Reforms codifying Daniel Doron's recommendations. While this government intervention in the economy may be viewed as contradicting the free market approach of ICSEP and Daniel Doron it has resulted in a far more competitive Israeli capital market.

Daniel Doron composes articles and op-ed pieces on behalf of ICSEP which have been published in major publications in the United States, Britain, and Israel.

Other Activities and Honors

Daniel Doron was sole representative of the internationally-renowned artist Shalom of Safed, arranging his 15 museum exhibitions. Doron's film on Shalom won several important awards and was represented in the US at international festivals.

See also

Israel Center for Social and Economic Progress]
http://www.icsep.org.il/en/
http://www.icsep.org.il/en/

Bachar Reforms]
http://bacharreform.com
http://bacharreform.com
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