in the PBS National Young Filmmaker's contest for the film, Comrades in Arms, which he wrote and directed. In the summer of 1976, he worked as gofer for Orson Welles. In 1977 Oren completed his undergraduate degree from Columbia College. He continued his studies at Columbia, receiving a master's degree in International Affairs in 1978 from the School of International and Public Affairs, where he was an International Fellow and a DACOR Fellow. After college, he spent a year as an adviser to the Israeli delegation to the United Nations. In 1979 Oren emigrated to Israel. Upon assuming Israeli citizenship, he changed his last name from "Bornstein" to "Oren", meaning "pine tree" in Hebrew. He renounced his American citizenship in 2009 upon his nomination as ambassador to the United States, since Israeli law prohibits international representatives from holding dual nationality. A few years later Oren returned to the United States to continue his education, studying at Princeton University. In 1986 he earned an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton. Oren was the Lady Davis Fellow of Hebrew University and a Moshe Dayan Fellow at Tel Aviv University. In 1982 he married Sally Edelstein, who was born in San Francisco and immigrated to Israel in 1981. They have three children. In an article published in The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg profiled Sally's acquaintance with rock stars Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jefferson Airplane. Marty Balin, one of the main songwriters of Jefferson Airplane, wrote two songs about her in the 1960s. Oren's nephew is comedian Jon Rudnitsky. Military service In 1979, Oren began his military service in the Israel Defense Forces. He served as a paratrooper in the 1982 Lebanon War. His unit was caught in a Syrian ambush on the second day of the war. His commander was killed and nearly everyone was wounded. He then joined a unit stationed in Sidon. A day after his wedding, in the summer of 1982, Oren returned to Beirut. Following his regular military service, Oren volunteered to work with the Zionist underground in the Soviet Union. Sent to make contact with Zionist groups in Ukraine, he was repeatedly arrested by the KGB. During the Persian Gulf War he was Israeli liaison officer to the U.S. Sixth Fleet. He was called up for reserve duty for the 2005 Gaza disengagement, and participated in the evacuation of settlements. He served as an