Faculty and Staff - Politics and Communication (B.A)

Dr. Rosenthal's research and teaching deal with how political actors strive to achieve their goals in parliamentary democracies, particularly in the Israeli case. His research mainly examines how political elites (prime ministers, members of parliament, high court judges, and senior officials) use institutional arrangements, rhetoric, and heresthetic(s) to turn their political desires into public policy. Alongside dealing with political elites, Dr. Rosenthal examines how weakened political groups operate in elections based on their social status to achieve their goals. In this context, his research examines the political behavior of Arabs in Israel and the electoral behavior of Mizrahim in Israel. Dr. Rosenthal's research utilizes the rational choice approach (with an emphasis on the realistic and pragmatic use of the principles of the approach) and research methods such as analytical narratives and quantitative research methods. Dr. Rosenthal was a faculty member at the Lauder School at Reichman University visiting lecturer in a program of Israeli colleagues on behalf of the Schusterman Foundation in the Department of Political Science at SUNY Binghamton University in the United States. He was a visiting researcher at the McMillan Center at Yale University. He was the first postdoctoral fellow of the Planning and Budgeting Committee of the Council for Higher Education in Israel in the Department of Sociology, Political Science and Communication at the Open University. Dr. Rosenthal studied all his degrees in the Department of Political Science at Tel Aviv University under the supervision of the late Professor Gideon Doron.

Alex Selsky has extensive experience in senior roles in public relations, spokespersonship, and public diplomacy in the Israeli public sector.

He served as the first emissary of the Jewish Agency for public diplomacy and Jewish education at universities in New York during the Second Intifada and the Disengagement Plan.

Subsequently, he served as Deputy Spokesperson for the Jewish Agency and the World Zionist Organization, as Media Advisor to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for Russian-language media, and as the Spokesperson for the National Economic Council in the Prime Minister's Office.

He has initiated and managed political and public diplomacy campaigns in Israel and around the world. He appears and publishes opinion articles in Israeli and international media on various topics, including security, politics, economics, society, international relations, and more.

He serves as a reservist briefing officer for the Home Front Command in Israeli media in Hebrew and Russian, with the rank of Major.

He graduated with honors from the Executive Master’s Program in Public Policy at the Hebrew University and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration with specializations in Marketing Communications and Human Resources Management from the College of Management Academic Studies.

Has been teaching in the Department of Politics and Communication at Hadassah Academic College since 2013.