Iraq-War Veteran Wins Award from Brooklyn College Department of Judaic Studies

Daniel Floros and Professor Sara Reguer.

Brooklyn College freshman Daniel Floros and Professor Sara Reguer, chairperson of the Department of Judaic Studies, who presented Floros with the first Gilbert Kruger Israel Travel Award. The award, endowed by the family of the late attorney Gilbert Kruger, Class of 1962, assists students who travel to Israel for research or to attend school.

   Floros, a former U.S. Marine Reservist with the Brooklyn-based 6th Communications Battalion, had made one previous trip to the Middle East. "I was stationed in Kuwait from February to June last year," he says. "I was intrigued by the intricacies and complexities of the local culture, but there was little opportunity to explore them. After all, it was during a war."

    Floros will take an intensive course in Arabic this summer in the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. A Middle Eastern Studies major minoring in sociology, he hopes to find success in the international business world, while fostering a mutual understanding between the Middle East and the West. "Both cultures suffer from chronic lack of perspective," he says. "An awareness of history and the intricacies of geopolitics may help."