2022 Season Speakers

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    2022 EJLCC Speakers

    Week 1: Amy Spitalnick


    Executive Director


    Integrity First For America

    Amy Spitalnick is the Executive Director of Integrity First for America, a civil rights nonprofit organization dedicated to holding those accountable who threaten long standing principles of our democracy. IFA recently won its groundbreaking lawsuit against the neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and hate groups responsible for the Unite the Right violence, securing multi-million dollar judgments on behalf of Charlottesville community members who were injured. Under Amy’s leadership, IFA has become a powerful national voice in the fight against extremism – and its Charlottesville case has emerged as a model for accountability.

     

    Amy has extensive experience in government, politics, and advocacy, including as Communications Director and Senior Policy Advisor to the New York Attorney General and Communications Advisor and Spokesperson for the New York City Mayor. She has also worked for a number of federal, state, and local officials, campaigns, and advocacy organizations.

     

    Amy frequently appears in national media and has been awarded a number of fellowships and honors, including being named a Women inPower Fellow at the 92nd Street Y, a Truman National Security Project Fellow, and a City & State 40 Under 40 Rising Star. Amy graduated from Tufts University.



    Week 2: Jonathan Boiskin


    Executive Director
    Friends of Israel Sci-Tech Schools

    Jonathan Boiskin is a native South African and a graduate of the University of Cape Town (South Africa) with an undergraduate degree in History, Hebrew, and Jewish Civilization and a Masters Degree in Jewish Communal Service from Brandeis University in Waltham, MA. He has worked for the United Jewish Appeal in Cape Town, South Africa, for the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia (PA), and for Drexel, Rutgers and NY Universities. As Executive Director of Friends of Israel Sci-Tech Schools, Mr. Boiskin has assumed leadership of an American organization supporting Israel’s largest and leading educational network. He served on the board and executive committee of Temple Beth Sholom in Cherry Hill, NJ as well as committees of the Jewish Federation of Southern NJ and Cherry Hill Board of Jewish Education.
    Week 3: Rabbi David Saperstein
    Rabbi Saperstein is an American rabbi, lawyer, and Jewish community leader who served as United States Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom He previously served as the director and chief legal counsel at the Union for Reform Judaism's Religious Action Center for more than 30 years.
    He was born in New York City. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Cornell University, Master of Hebrew Letters from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, and Juris Doctor from the Washington College of Law at American University.

    On July 28, 2014, President Obama nominated Saperstein to be the first non-Christian to hold the post of United States Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom In December 2014 Saperstein's appointment to the post won U.S. Senate confirmation.

    He has co-chaired the Coalition to Preserve Religious Liberty, and serves on the boards of the NAACP, Common Cause, and People For the American Way. In 1999, Saperstein was elected as the first Chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. On August 28, 2008, Saperstein delivered the invocation at the Democratic National Convention's final session, before Senator Barack Obama accepted the party's nomination for president.

    In February 2009, he was named to President Obama's Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. In 2009 Newsweek named him # 1 on its list of "50 Influential Rabbis."

    Saperstein is also an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center.
    Week 4: Susan Pollack
    President Of The Board Of Directors
    Friends of Ethiopian Jews, Inc.
    Susan Pollack has spent her life helping people trapped by oppression and tyranny. From 1981-1991, she worked in Sudan and Ethiopia smuggling Jews out of Ethiopia where the Marxist military regime arrested and tortured those trying to leave the country. She brought exit papers and medical supplies to Ethiopia’s Jews and lobbied governments to stage airlifts.

    Ms. Pollack secretly implemented the move of 18,000 Jewish from 300 mountain villages south 800 km to Addis Ababa to stage the Operation Solomon airlift. She opened ‘Susa’s Compound’ and found food, medicine, blankets and housing for all 18,000. Susan followed the community to Israel in 1991 and worked there for 3 years, helping with the absorption of the Ethiopian Jewish community.

    Since returning to the United States, she earned a Masters Degree at Harvard University and worked for 9 years on behalf of Yemin Orde Youth Village in Israel that helps immigrant and refugee children from 22 countries. She has also helped Tibetan refugee children in India and orphans of genocide in Rwanda, and disabled U.S. veterans.

    For her work on behalf of Ethiopian Jews, Ms. Pollack was named Hadassah Woman of the Year and received the Jan Karski Freedom Award for Valor and Compassion.

    She continues to work on behalf of the Ethiopian Jewish community through Friends of Ethiopian Jews, a nonprofit organization which she co-founded that supports grassroots programs and advocacy efforts by organizations run by Ethiopian Israelis themselves.

    Week 5: The Honourable Irwin Cotler
    Founder and International Chair
    Raoul Wallenberg Centre
    for Human Rights

    The Honourable Irwin Cotler, P.C., O.C., O.Q., Avocat Emerite, is the founder and international chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, an Emeritus Professor of Law at McGill University, a former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, and an international human rights lawyer He was named Canada’s Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism in November 2020.

    Through his career, Mr. Cotler demonstrated strong leadership in the fight against racism, antisemitism, and hate, and acquired a vast experience in justice and human rights. Between 1999 and 2015, he served as the Member of Parliament for Mount Royal. As a Parliamentarian, he advocated for human rights and international justice, including as chair of the first-ever Assembly of Parliamentarians for the International Criminal Court, chair of the Parliamentarians for Global Action (Canada), and chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Group for Human Rights in Iran, the Inter-Parliamentary Group of Justice for Sergei Magnitsky, the All-Party Save Darfur Parliamentary Coalition, and Co-Chair of the Interparliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism.

    Week 6: Oren Segal

    Vice President, Center of Extremism


    Anti Defamation League

    As Vice President of the Center on Extremism, Oren Segal and his team combat extremism, terrorism and all forms of hate in the real world and online. Recognized as the foremost authority on extremism, the Center provides resources, expertise and training which enables law enforcement, public officials and internet and technology companies to identify and counter emerging threats.  

    Mr. Segal joined ADL in 1998 after working for The New York Times and the Jewish Community Federation in San Francisco. Much of his 21 years with ADL has been devoted to evaluating the activity and tactics of extremist groups and movements from across the ideological spectrum, training law enforcement officers and publishing reports and articles on a wide range of extremist topics. In 2006, Mr. Segal was recognized by the FBI for his exceptional service in the public interest. He was named to the Forward’s list of 50 influential, intriguing and inspiring American Jews in 2019.

    Mr. Segal is a graduate of Wheaton College in Massachusetts.

    Week 7: Ambassador Jon Allen


    Senior Fellow

    Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy

    Jon Allen (LL.B., University of Western Ontario, 1976; LL.M., International Law, University of London School of Economics, 1977) joined the then Department of External Affairs in 1981. In addition to postings abroad in Mexico City (1983-85), New Delhi (1989-92) and Washington (1997-2001), Mr. Allen spent his early career in the Legal Bureau of the Department representing Canada in disputes under the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement and working in the areas of human rights, humanitarian and environmental law.

    Mr. Allen also held the positions of Director General, North America Bureau (2001-2004), Minister (Political Affairs) at the Canadian Embassy in Washington (2004-2006) and Assistant Deputy Minister, Americas (2010-2012), when he managed Canada’s relations with North America, Latin America and the Caribbean.

    From 2006 to 2010, Mr. Allen was Canada’s Ambassador to Israel. From 2012 to 2016 he was Ambassador to Spain and Andorra. From December 2012 to July 2014, he was Chargé d’affaires a.i. to the Holy See.

     

    He is currently a Senior Fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto and at Glendon College, York University and a Distinguished Fellow of the Canada International Council. He is the Chair of Project Rozana Canada, a not for profit whose objective is to build bridges between Palestinians and Israelis via the health sector and is a Member of the Board of Transparency International Canada.

    Week 8:  Rep Jamie Raskin

    Congressman Jamie Raskin represents Maryland’s 8th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. Congressman Raskin was sworn into his third Term at the start of the 117th Congress on January 3, 2021.

    This is Rep. Raskin’s third term serving on the House Judiciary Committee, the Committee on Oversight and Reform, and the Committee on House Administration. This is his second term serving on the Rules Committee and the Coronavirus Select Subcommittee. He was also renamed Chair of the Oversight Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and Chair of the Rules Subcommittee on Expedited Procedures for the 117th Congress.

    Prior to his time in Congress, Raskin was a three-term State Senator in Maryland, where he also served as the Senate Majority Whip. He earned a reputation for building coalitions in Annapolis to deliver a series of landmark legislative accomplishments. He was also a professor of constitutional law at American University’s Washington College of Law for more than 25 years. He authored several books, including the Washington Post best-seller Overruling Democracy: The Supreme Court versus the American People and the highly-acclaimed We the Students: Supreme Court Cases For and About America’s Students, which has sold more than 50,000 copies.

    Congressman Raskin is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School.

    Week 9: Marc Masurovsky

    Marc Masurovsky co-founded the Holocaust Art Restitution Project (HARP) in 1997 and has served as its Director of Research and is a Board member. He has researched the question of assets looted during the Holocaust and World War II since 1980 and has worked as an expert historian on a class-action lawsuit for Jewish claimants seeking restitution of lost accounts and other liquid assets from Swiss banks. As a consultant and historian for the Department of Justice's Office of Special Investigations, he researched alleged Nazi war criminals living in the U.S., interviewed witnesses to crimes against humanity and studied post-war relations between former Nazi officials and Allied intelligence agencies. Mr. Masurovsky earned his M.A. in Modern European History from American University in Washington, D.C. For his Master's thesis, he researched "Operation Safehaven: the Allied response to Nazi post-defeat planning, 1944-1948".

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