BENJAMIN ORBACH is the Director of the America’s Unofficial Ambassadors project at Creative Learning and a Consultant to Creative Associates International. Until August of 2009, Orbach was Creative Associates’ Resident Country Director for the West Bank and Gaza, where he developed and managed a program of more than 70 community leadership development projects in West Bank cities, villages, and refugee camps. From 2004 - 2007, Orbach was the Deputy Regional Coordinator at the U.S. Department of State’s Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI). He received superior achievement and meritorious achievement awards for designing and managing democratic reform projects in the Middle East and North Africa. Before joining the State Department, Orbach was a research fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, where he wrote analyses and essays on democratic reform in the Middle East, public diplomacy, terrorism, and Arab politics. Orbach has a Masters degree in Middle East Studies and International Economics from the Johns Hopkins University (SAIS) and a BA in History from the University of Michigan. At SAIS, he was a Boren Fellow, CASA Fellow, and the David Kagan Fellow. A speaker of Arabic and Hebrew, Orbach has lived in Jerusalem, Amman, and Cairo, and has traveled extensively throughout the Middle East and North Africa. He previously taught special education social studies in Washington D.C. and worked with AmeriCorps in Colorado and Texas. He is a Pittsburgh native and can be reached at BenjaminOrbach at yahoo.com.
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