1. Personal life and background

2. As an IDF spokesperson

3. At Fantine Consulting

4. As vice president of the City of David Foundation (El’ad)

5. Public appearances on behalf of the City of David

6. The Committee for Blue Skies Over Ma'ale Adumim

7. Torah study

8. Personal life

9. References

Doron Spielman דורון שפילמן (born November 20, 1973).^[1] is the vice president of the City of David, the ancient Jerusalem tourist and archaeological site, where he has worked since 2002.^[2] As vice president of the City of David, Spielman has been featured on international media sites and appeared on news programs such as NBC’s 60 Minutes. In connection to his role at the City of David, he has met with several senior US officials.

Since 2000, Spielman has served as a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in the IDF’s Spokesperson’s Unit and continues to serve in this unit for frequent reserve duty. In his capacity as an IDF spokesperson, Spielman has appeared in many interviews in the international media, such as on CNN, Fox News, BBC, Al Jazeera, The New York Times and others.

Personal life and background

Spielman, was born Darren Michael Spilman, in Farmington Hills, Michigan.^[3] His family is Jewish, having emigrated from Russia and Ukraine to the United States in the early twentieth century. His father, Murray Spielman, is a business man, and mother, Geraldine Spielman, is a college lecturer on the subject of self awareness through literature. Spielman is the youngest of three brothers.

He attended Harrison High School in Farmington Hills from 1987–1988 for the first semester of ninth grade where he and a small group of other Jewish students were the targets of anti-Semitic attacks by other students. The parents of the Jewish students threatened to bring a class action suit against the district unless they opened the borders and allowed them to transfer high schools. The district acquiesced, and in 1988, Spielman transferred to North Farmington High School; he graduated from there in 1992.

Spielman attended Michigan State University from 1992–1994, and was a member of the Alpha Epsilon Pi Jewish fraternity there. He then transferred to the University of Michigan, where he studied from 1994 to 1996. Spielman majored in international relations in the Middle East with an emphasis on business, and graduated as a member of the international honor society Phi Beta Kappa.^[4]

Following a trip to Israel in 1992, Spielman became a political activist at the University of Michigan. He served as president of the American Movement for Israel (AMI). As president of AMI, Spielman organized many pro-Israel events on campus including public speaking engagements and campus petitions that sought to justify Israel’s presence in Lebanon and prevent an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights.

Spielman hosted, chaired, and spoke publicly at the campus-wide vigil in memory of the assassinated Israeli prime minister Yitzchak Rabin in November of 1995.^[5] As a result of his public speaking at this event, he was asked to represent the University of Michigan Hillel, as a member of its local governing board, as well as internationally as a University of Michigan Hillel representative to Hillel International, as part of its annual student leadership retreat.

During Spielman’s time at the University of Michigan, he was selected to be part of an internship under the auspices of the Office of the United States Trade Representative. The internship took place during the US trade war with Japan over automotive imports. Spielman’s role was to organize advisory committees of corporate individuals and players that supported the president’s policies.

Upon graduation from the University of Michigan, Spielman participated in the Otzma fellowship program from 1996–1997 for ten months in Israel. While there, he learned Hebrew, lived in Kibbutz Revivim, and worked with new Jewish immigrants from Ethiopia and the former Soviet Union, teaching them English and helping them acculturate into Israeli society.

As an IDF spokesperson

Spielman made aliyah in January 2000, thus officially becoming an Israeli citizen. Upon making aliyah, he studied Hebrew in an intensive state-sponsored Hebrew course at Ulpan Etzion in Jerusalem.

After completing ulpan, Spielman was drafted into the IDF in September of 2000, four days after the outbreak of the Second Intifada and the subsequent Operation Defensive Shield. There he was selected to be an IDF spokesperson to the foreign press. Spielman completed the IDF spokespersons’ officers course. He served in reserve duty throughout the Second Intifada in Ramallah, in Bethlehem during the Siege of the Church of Nativity, on the Lebanese border during the Second Lebanon War in 2006 and again in Operation Cast Lead in Gaza in 2008–2009. In each case, he worked to defend the Israeli army’s message while under fire in numerous war zones, and was interviewed by many international journalists from news networks, such as CNN,^[6] Fox News,^[7] BBC,^[8] Al Jazeera,^[9] the Associated Press,^[10] The New York Times,^[11] Sky News, The Jerusalem Post and others^[12]

Spielman holds the rank of major in the IDF. He currently serves frequent tours of reserve duty as an IDF spokesperson. Most recently he participated in Juniper Cobra 18 in 2018, a joint military exercise conducted by Israeli and US armed forces.

At Fantine Consulting

From 2001–2002, Spielman worked for Fantine Consulting in Tel Aviv as a business consultant for Israeli companies seeking to penetrate European markets. Most of his clients were high tech start-up companies.

As vice president of the City of David Foundation (El’ad)

Spielman is the vice president of the City of David Foundation (El’ad). In 2002, Spielman joined Davidle Beeri, the founder of the City of David Foundation and the modern-day effort to develop the archaeological site there. When Spielman joined the City of David, the site was little more than an unknown archaeological site on a hilltop just outside of what is commonly referred to as Jerusalem’s Old City walls. Spielman was brought on in order to lead the fundraising and public relations efforts for the site. Due to Spielman’s efforts in these areas, hundreds of millions of dollars of funding came to the site, and the City of David earned international renown as the preeminent biblical tourist site of ancient Jerusalem.^[13]

Spielman has led the media efforts to redefine the City of David as the actual Old City of Jerusalem mentioned in the Bible, as opposed to the area enclosed today by the Ottoman era wall, commonly mistakenly referred to as the “Old City” of Jerusalem. His efforts have contributed to the common awareness today that it is the City of David where the Bible took place.^[14]

Before Spielman joined the City of David, most Israeli soldiers, as part of their national heritage trips, were taken to the site of the Battle of Masada, which symbolizes the final defeat of Jewish sovereignty in Israel by the Romans in 71 CE. Davidl’e Be’eri and Spielman sought to change that paradigm. By securing donations, Spielman was able to invite Israeli soldiers to visit the City of David for their national heritage trips, instead of Masada.

In addition to bringing thousands of Israeli soldiers to the City of David, Spielman has also worked to bring scores of Israeli school children to visit the site as part of school field trips focused on exposing them to ancient Jewish history, as well as modern Jewish identity.

With Spielman’s involvement in the realms of fundraising and public relations, the City of David has become one of the fastest growing and most successful tourist sites in Israel. According to the Israel Antiquities Authority, “The City of David is one of the most visited sites in Israel today. In 2008, for example, 400,000 people visited the site.”^[15]

Spielman also serves on the City of David’s steering committee and is involved in the oversight of the project including the archaeological excavations, under the auspices of the Israel Antiquities Authority, and tourism development.

As a result of Spielman’s fundraising efforts, the team at the City of David worked to uncover the Spring Citadel, which is the largest pre-Herodian structure in Israel.^[16][17]

Although the City of David has generally enjoyed renown as the biblical site of ancient Jerusalem, it has also experienced controversy as the target of UNESCO, which passed a resolution in 2016, that denied the Jewish historical connection to the city. In response to this resolution, Spielman helped create and star in, a short film^[18] taken on the premises of the City of David.^[19] The film seeks to refute UNESCO’s claim that there are no Jewish historical connections to ancient Jerusalem.

Spielman’s efforts were noticed by Senator Ted Cruz, who responded to the UNESCO resolution with House Resolution 570,^[20] which seeks to support Israel’s Jewish and Christian historical claims to Jerusalem. Cruz expresses his support for Jerusalem and the City of David in particular:

Public appearances on behalf of the City of David

Spielman was featured on 60 Minutes in 2010, in an interview^[22] with Leslie Stahl in which he defends the City of David’s archaeological claims.

He has hosted many Hollywood actors at the City of David, such as Jerry Seinfeld and Helen Mirren,^[23] as well as government officials like Senator Joe Lieberman,^[24] Michael Bloomberg and Rudy Giuliani. He continues to host celebrities from all over the world who are interested in learning more about biblical Jerusalem and the recent archaeological finds at the City of David.

As part of his public relations role, Spielman has appeared in many documentaries about biblical Jerusalem, King David, and modern Jerusalem tourist attractions. He can be found as the City of David authority in films produced by the Discovery Channel, the History Channel, and others^[25], like The Bible’s Buried Secrets.^[26]

Spielman has also traveled to Washington to meet with US government officials on behalf of the City of David, as he did recently with US Vice President Mike Pence in July of 2018,at the White House to discuss the importance of the City of David and ancient Jerusalem.^[27]

In August 2018, Spielman hosted the most prestigious delegation to date of US government officials at the City of David. The delegation included National Security Advisor John Bolton, US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, Israeli Ambassador to the US Ron Dermer, and Israeli National Security Advisor Eytan Ben-David.^[28]

The Committee for Blue Skies Over Ma'ale Adumim

In 2017, Spielman helped found the Committee for Blue Skies over Ma'ale Adumim, which is a grassroots citizen-led effort to combat the illegal burning of garbage, tires, and other dangerous items in Arab towns on the periphery of Ma’ale Adumim that have caused dangerous smoke and ash to enter the homes of thousands of Ma’ale Adumim residents. The group’s Facebook page^[29] allows Ma’ale Adumim residents to upload videos and photos of fires and alerts the city’s police department and local emergency hotline in real time, so that they are able to apprehend the perpetrators of the fires. Due to the group’s success in stopping these dangerous fires, the air quality in Ma’ale Adumim has increased significantly and allowed for a close cooperation amongst its residents, city officials, and police officers in this matter.^[30]

Torah study

Spielman has dedicated time to Torah learning in several Jerusalem religious seminaries (yeshivot). He studied at Pardes from 1997-99, at David Shapell College of Jewish Studies/Darche Noam^[31] from 2009-2010,^[32] and at Machon Meir from 2016-2017.

Personal life

Spielman is married to Sarah Spielman, originally from London. The couple have six children and reside in Ma’ale Adumim, a suburb east of Jerusalem.{{cn|dateFebruary 2019}}

References

• Rasor (disambiguation)
• Rasos (disambiguation)
• Rasos (district)
• Ras Osta
• Rasos (Vilnius)
• Rasoul Azadani
• Rasoul Kar
• Rasoul Khorvash
• Rasoul Movahedian
• Rasoul Raeisi
• Rasoul Raisi
• Rasoul Yunan
• Rasoun
• Rasovac
• Rasovac (Trebinje)
• Rasovita
• Rasoviţa
• Rasovița
• Rasovo, Montenegro
• Raspador
• Raspadskaya coal mine
• Raspadskaya (coal mine)
• Raspadskaya mine
• Raspao
• Raspberry Award for Worst Actress