David Newman OBE (Hebrew: דיויד ניומן; born 4 July 1956) is a British-Israeli scholar in political geography and geopolitics.
[1] Newman also served for many years as chief editor of the academic journal Geopolitics and as dean of BGU's Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences.
He completed his PhD (1981) on the topic of Gush Emunim and West Bank Settlement Activity under the tutelage of political geographer Professor Gerald Blake.
[3] From 2010 to 2016, Newman was elected to serve two consecutive terms as dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Ben-Gurion University.
Newman was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2013 Birthday Honours for services to higher education and the humanities and promoting academic links between the UK and Israel.
[11] Newman wrote or coauthored the following entries in the Encyclopedia Judaica: aliyah, Gush Emunim, State of Israel, and religious peace movements.
[12] Newman is associated with a number of border and boundary-related institutions, such as the International Boundaries Research Unit in the UK, the Association of Borderland Studies in the USA, the Border Regions in Transition (BRIT) network, and, until 2012, as the secretary of the Commission on the World Political Map (WPM) of the International Geographical Union.
From 1999–2014 Newman served as chief editor, together with Professor John Agnew from UCLA and then with Prof Simon Dalby from the University of Waterloo in Canada, of the International journal Geopolitics, published quarterly by Taylor and Francis (Routledge).
[13] Within the broader field of Geopolitics, Newman’s work has focused on the changing functions and roles of borders within the international and national systems.
Following the events of 9/11, Newman and his colleagues have observed and analyzed the ways in which many borders have become reconstituted in the name of national securitization, including the construction of many new walls and fences throughout the world.
It focused on the political and planning activities of the Gush Emunim religious nationalist settlement movement, a topic he revisited during the subsequent period and up until now.
This work, in cooperation with Dr. Leviah Applebaum, resulted in two books, one examining the changing modes of settlement [16] and the second an analysis of the system of rural local government (the Regional Councils).
Within these areas, Newman wrote or coauthored entries in the Encyclopedia Judaica and other Encyclopaedias on topics such as aliyah, Gush Emunim, State of Israel, and religious peace movements.
In the latter part of his career, Newman developed a secondary research interest in the history of the Jewish communities throughout the United Kingdom from the mid-19th century until now.
His political activities have focused on the Israeli peace camp, arguing for territorial withdrawal and the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel as part of a Two-state solution to the conflict.
His political activities have focused on the Israeli peace camp, arguing for territorial withdrawal and the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel as part of a Two-state solution to the conflict.
[20] Since 2000, Newman has been responsible for the transfer of unused Torah Scrolls (ספרי תורה) from synagogues in the UK to new young communities in Israel.