On Sunday, December 11, 2011, senior personnel from one of the security divisions of the Prime Minister's Office convened at IDI for a seminar on the value of human dignity, its importance to Israeli society, and how it finds expression in the division's ongoing activities.
Senior researchers from diverse fields related to human dignity addressed the participants at this seminar. IDI Vice President of Research Prof. Mordechai Kremnitzer, who chaired the seminar, focused on the connection between the centrality of human dignity and the development of Western democracy. He surveyed the different meanings given to human dignity in Israeli case law, and demonstrated various tests of proportionality that are used to assess violations of human rights, including violations of human dignity. Prof. Kremnitzer also presented the area of human dignity that is most in need of repair in Israel today: the attitude toward the Other.
Dr. Moshe Hellinger, a Senior Researcher at IDI and a member of the Law Faculty and department of Political Science at Bar-Ilan University, introduced the concept of human dignity from a historical and conceptual perspective, in accordance with the Western approach. He also explored the concept's connection with Jewish tradition.
In the continuation of the seminar, Rabbi Dr. Shlomo Cassirer presented the concept of human dignity through the prism of the Jewish faith. Dr. Raya Morag, Assistant Professor of Cinema Studies at the Department of Communication and Journalism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, presented the concept of human dignity as expressed in the cinema, which reflects the processes taking place in society. Attorney Tziona Koenig–Yair, the National Commissioner of Equal Employment Opportunities, spoke about equal opportunities in the labor market, especially in the context of wage discrimination against women and the exclusion of Arabs from the workforce.
The seminar ended with a discussion among the participants, which marked the beginning of an internal process of discourse within the organization. During this discussion, the senior personnel discussed where they encounter the concept of human dignity in their day to day activities, and how to maintain this value without compromising the security tasks that they must fulfill.
The head of the division summed up the seminar as follows: "Human dignity is not just a value that we have posted on our bulletin board. It is a central concept for the society that we are entrusted to protect. For this reason, we must check ourselves on a daily basis and think about how we can make this value normative, and turn it into an essential part of our activities."