Biran: “Transform to perform. Research to resolve. That is our way to advance new structures for the new wealth of our era.”Shraga F. Biran is a published author, founder of one of Israel's leading law firms, S. Biran & Co., founder and current president of the Institute for Structural Reforms (ISR), and former Chairman of Israel's National Task Force on Urban Renewal. Biran’s work generates solutions that expand economic opportunity for low-income communities in Israel, often inventing delicately balanced, business savvy responses to institutionalized poverty. Biran is a regular contributor to Israel’s leading media outlets and is frequently quoted by national radio, print and television media. He often organizes conferences and high-level discussions in both academic and political circles.Since publishing his book, In Tears Shall They Reap in 2002, Biran has offered his social, economic and political ideas in both public and academic forums. His book, OPPORTUNISM: How to Change the World - One Idea at a Time, was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2011. Biran’s innovative reformulation of opportunism and Machiavellianism as means to generate positive change – instead of the corrupted ethics they were infamous for – has an ongoing impact on the intellectual agenda. Biran’s study of opportunities was adapted, translated into Chinese and published as a new book in China by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. The book focuses on our new era — an era of intangible wealth, in which wealth needs to be redefined as a new category of property, owned by the new classes. Biran explores the ways in which “old money” is trying to reap the benefits of the new wealth, instead of utilizing it through innovative socio-economic structures. The emergence of this new era represents a tectonic and historical change to the economy and social structure, requiring new socially-minded regulation policies. The ISR, a research institute and think-tank whose aim is to generate social and financial change, has been contributing to the development of these policies since it was founded by Biran (for more details, search for the "Institute for Structural Reforms" online). The ISR operates under the motto of “research to resolve,” while rejecting the idea of being bound to the experience of the past, keeping in mind we live in an entirely new era. For a couple of years at the end of the 2010s, the ISR partnered with Tel Aviv University and functioned as an academic institute. For over a decade, the ISR has been developing its PFT (poverty, fundamentalism and terror) doctrine, generating several academic papers, conferences and media appearances, including a paper published in 2019 titled The Political Economy of the Gaza Strip: Poverty, Fundamentalism, Political Violence, and their Resolution, and Biran’s upcoming book Liberating Gaza: Breaking the Cycle of Poverty, Fundamentalism and Terror. Concurrently, the publication of Biran’s book dedicated to Israel’s national housing policy is underway. The book focuses on three main themes: planning, land and financing policies. The book is based on fifty years of research and practical experience on the ground in Israel and abroad, and proposes a novel approach to spatial planning and legislation for the new economy and society.As a lawyer, Biran fought several legal battles against institutional corruption for the benefit of the public, alongside his late partner, Adv. Shmuel Tamir. Biran and Tamir worked to reveal the truth about the abandonment of Jews to their fate during the Second World War. Known as the Kastner trial, it became a cause célèbre with major political repercussions in Israel.For the last six decades, Biran has represented critical cases in areas of political, social and civic rights. Both as a lawyer and as the current president of the ISR, Biran focuses on the primary task of reforming by developing the capacity of disadvantaged populations to climb up the social ladder. This is being made possible through different policies Biran has been developing for years: exploring the topic of digital healthcare as social healthcare (turning medical big data into a research resources for the benefit of its owners, both patients and doctors); developing financial and spatial planning mechanisms to create affordable housing for disadvantaged populations in Israel, by turning 1 million families of tenants into homeowners and landowners, as well as promoting adequate legislation; developing designated spatial and social plans to rehabilitate the Western Negev after the war, based on the cutting-edge urban-rural paradigm; developing urban areas of slums and poverty by fighting segregation; and more. Currently, Biran leads a national legal battle in Israel’s Supreme Court, against the violation of the property rights of 540,000 families in various poor neighborhoods. Biran played a pivotal role in the initiation and development of a range of complex residential and commercial real-estate projects, developing dynamic neighborhoods throughout the nation. Moreover, Biran served as a legal counselor to various industrial parks and countless other initiatives, thus helping to transform Israel's social and civic landscape, as well as its skyline. The current central goal on the ISR agenda is to put an end to the peripheral status of Northern and Southern Israel – that were devastated by the war – through urban renewal development strategy, based on the urban-rural paradigm. Read more about this authorRead less about this author