Rabbi Dr Shimon Cowen, son of a former Governor General of Australia, Sir Zelman Cowen OBM, has a dual background in secular and religious studies. He has a PhD in social philosophy and received Rabbinic Ordination from Rabbi Chaim Gutnick OBM in Australia and Rabbi S. Y. Cohen, the Chief Rabbi of Haifa, Israel. He has been a Senior Research Fellow at Monash University and Program Director of a postgraduate Rabbinic Institute, the Kollel Menachem Lubavitch in Melbourne. In 1998 he “fused” these strands in the establishment of the Institute for Judaism and Civilization as its founding Director.