Dr. Amnon Shapira is a senior lecturer at the Department of Israel’s Heritage, Ariel University Center. He is also on the faculty of the Maale School of Television, Film and the Arts in Jerusalem, and has taught in the past at Bar-Ilan University, The Jewish Theological Seminary of America and at several other institutions. His main fields of interest are the Hebrew Bible, Medieval Jewish commentaries, Biblical theology, the ethics of war and of “democratic” and "anarchistic" values in the Bible. He has long been involved in educational activities and has published widely in the Israeli press, in journals and in books and has organized conferences on Jewish and biblical studies. His published books include The Biblical Religious Sources of Democracy, Ha-Kibbutz ha-Meuchad Press, Tel Aviv 2009 (Hebrew) and Jacob and Esau: A Polyvalent Reading, Society of Biblical Literature, Semeia Studies, Atlanta & Brill, Leiden University (In press).