Dr. Michael Alexander was born in Tel Aviv, spent his adolescence in the USA, and has also lived in Europe. He holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania, and a M.A. in Political Science from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. As an urban planner at the Municipality of Tel Aviv-Yafo, he initiated Israel’s first urban cycle paths network. He then founded an NGO that promoted cycling in the city.
In 2003 he completed his Ph.D. on Municipal Policies toward Migrants at the University of Amsterdam, and later published a book comparing European cities as well as Tel Aviv in terms of host-stranger relations. He has taught and written on local policies, globalization and migrant policy at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Haifa University and Tel Aviv University. From 2006 to 2010 he worked at the International Committee of the Red Cross, as ICRC’S first Israeli field worker in East Jerusalem and the West Bank since 1967. He has since fulfilled various roles at international and regional NGOs dealing with the Israeli-Arab conflict, human rights and the environment. A graduate of the Neve Shalom Facilitators course, he has been a group facilitator at Givat Haviva and Seeds of Peace.
In his free time, Michael enjoys hosting couch-surfers and cycling around Europe and Israel. In 2017 he joined the Arava Institute staff as coordinator of the Peace-Building Leadership Seminar.
