Alan D. Abbey is a research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute. His areas of interest include Israeli-Diaspora relations, Israeli and Palestinian media, Jewish media worldwide, and media ethics.
He was previously Director of Internet and Media at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, where he managed media relations, content creation, live video programming, and Institute websites.
Alan joined the Hartman Institute in 2008 after a 30-year career in journalism in the U.S. and Israel. Prior to joining the Institute, he founded Ynetnews, the English website of Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel’s largest media company.
Before that he was Executive Vice President at the Jerusalem Post and Editor-in-Chief of JPost.com.
Alan is also Adjunct Professor of Journalism at National University of San Diego, where he teaches Ethics in the New Media Age, International Reporting, and Feature Writing. He has lectured before academic, business, and community audiences in Israel, Europe, and the U.S.
He is Ethics Lecturer for the YaLa Young Leaders Program Getty School of Citizen Journalism in the Middle East and North Africa, which is training young adults to be citizen journalists.
In 2013, Alan conducted the first-ever study of journalists who work for Jewish media. The resulting report: “Reporting Jewish: Do Journalists Have the Tools to Succeed?” was presented as the keynote speech at the Annual Conference of the American Jewish Press Association in June 2013. An article he wrote based on the report, “Jewish Media Journalists Prefer their Own Judgment to Ethical Codes” was published by the journal Media Ethics Magazine.
In 2018, he published a follow-up study, “A World in Flux: Jewish Journalism Struggles to Survive,” about Jewish media journalists in the global Jewish diaspora. The report has been excerpted in Times of Israel.
From 2014–2015, Alan chaired the Hartman Institute–American Jewish Press Association Ethics Project, which updated the AJPA Code of Ethics to reflect Jewish values.
He was a team member in the Online News Association “Build Your Own” Ethics Code Project, which launched in Fall 2015.
In 2003, Alan authored Journey of Hope: The Story of Ilan Ramon, Israel’s First Astronaut.
Alan has a master’s degree in Journalism from the University of Oregon. He is a native of Brooklyn, NY, and lives in Jerusalem with his wife and three children.
