Dr. Meir Tamari is a world-renowned authority on business ethics and social responsibility.
Dr. Tamari served as Chief Economist in the Office of the Governor of the Bank of Israel and as Senior Lecturer in Corporate Finance and Jewish Business Ethics at Bar Ilan University, where he developed the first academic course on Jewish Business Ethics. In 1992 he founded and became the first Director of the Business Ethics Center of Jerusalem, and continues to serve as the Center’s senior consultant and President of the Board.
Dr. Tamari has lectured on Jewish business ethics to academics, corporate groups, and lay people throughout the world. He has spoken before audiences at Georgetown University Law Center, Yale Law School, Lehigh University, Boston University, Amherst College, UCLA, and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Tamari has served as a special consultant in the fields of corporate finance, risk evaluation, and entrepreneurship to governmental bodies in the U.S. (Small Business Administration), the U.K. (Royal Commission on Small Firms), Japan, France and South Africa, as well as to the World Bank.
A firm believer in the moral obligations of both individuals and corporations to adhere to the ethical demands of Judaism, Dr. Tamari has contributed numerous papers on business ethics and social responsibility to various academic journals and the public press. He authored the entries on Jewish Business Ethics in the Encyclopedia Judaica and the Blackwell Encyclopedia of Business Ethics, and has contributed articles to the International Journal of Business Ethics
He is the author of six books, including Al Chet: Sins in the Marketplace, With All Your Possessions: Jewish Ethics and Economic Life, and Jewish Values in our Open Society: A Weekly Torah Commentary. Laudatory reviews of his books have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Journal of Money and Banking.
Dr. Tamari recognizes that a highly ethical system of laws and customs has always been central to Jewish life, and his writings emphasize that morality and ethics, rather than economic systems, are the real basis for creating wealth and achieving economic justice.
A native of South Africa, Dr. Tamari moved to Israel in 1950 and lives with his wife Devorah in a suburb of Jerusalem.