Nls National Leadership Summit
Sunday, May 2, 2021 | 12:00 pm – 5:00 pm ET
Sunday, May 2, 2021 | 12:00 pm – 5:00 pm ET
Adam Neufeld
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Oren Segal
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Susan Heller Pinto
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George Selim
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Max Sevillia
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Eileen Hershenov
Steve Freeman
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Award-winning Filmmaker
Ken Burns has been making documentary films for over forty years. Since the Academy Award nominated Brooklyn Bridge in 1981, Ken has gone on to direct and produce some of the most acclaimed historical documentaries ever made, including The Civil War; Baseball; Jazz; The War; The National Parks: America’s Best Idea; The Roosevelts: An Intimate History; Jackie Robinson; The Vietnam War; and Country Music.
A December 2002 poll conducted by Real Screen Magazine listed The Civil War as second only to Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North as the “most influential documentary of all time,” and named Ken Burns and Robert Flaherty as the “most influential documentary makers” of all time. In March 2009, David Zurawik of The Baltimore Sun said, “… Burns is not only the greatest documentarian of the day, but also the most influential filmmaker period. That includes feature filmmakers like George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. I say that because Burns not only turned millions of persons onto history with his films, he showed us a new way of looking at our collective past and ourselves.” The late historian Stephen Ambrose said of his films, "More Americans get their history from Ken Burns than any other source." And Wynton Marsalis has called Ken “a master of timing, and of knowing the sweet spot of a story, of how to ask questions to get to the basic human feeling and to draw out the true spirit of a given subject.”
Future film projects include The US and the Holocaust, The American Buffalo, Leonardo da Vinci, The American Revolution, Emancipation to Exodus, and LBJ & the Great Society, among others.
Ken’s films have been honored with dozens of major awards, including sixteen Emmy Awards, two Grammy Awards and two Oscar nominations; and in September of 2008, at the News & Documentary Emmy Awards, Ken was honored by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences with a Lifetime Achievement Award.
Award-winning Filmmaker
Lynn Novick has been directing and producing landmark documentary films about American life and culture, history, politics, sports, art, architecture, literature, and music for more than 30 years. The 80 hours of acclaimed PBS programming she has created in collaboration with Ken Burns include The Vietnam War, Baseball, Jazz, Frank Lloyd Wright, The War, Prohibition, and Ernest Hemingway -- these landmark series have garnered 19 Emmy nominations. One of the most respected documentary filmmakers and story tellers in America, Novick herself has received Emmy, Peabody and Alfred I. duPont Columbia Awards.
College Behind Bars, Novick’s first film as solo director, premiered at the New York Film Festival and aired on PBS in 2019. Produced by Sarah Botstein, the four-part verité series explores urgently contemporary and timeless questions – What is prison for? Who in America has access to educational opportunity? Six years in the making, the series immerses viewers in the inspiring and transformational journey of a small group of incarcerated men and women serving time for serious crimes, as they try to earn college degrees in one of the most rigorous prison education programs in America – the Bard Prison Initiative (BPI). As the series unfolds, the incarcerated students master the liberal arts, reimagine themselves, come to terms with their pasts, become fully engaged citizens, and shatter stereotypes about incarcerated people and their intellectual and moral capacities. “What college does, it helps us learn about the nation,” says BPI student Rodney Spivey-Jones. “It helps us become civic beings. It helps us understand that we have an interest in our community, that our community is a part of us and we are a part of it.” “What you see in … these heartbreaking, inspiring stories, “says Jamil Smith in Rolling Stone, “ is a testament to the power of education, and why it remains such a dangerous and underrated weapon against a racially and economically unjust status quo in this nation.” Similarly, the Washington Post noted that those who oppose prison education programs are “perhaps aggravated at the sight of these men overachieving and the personal freedom that knowledge bestows.” The Education Writers of America honored the series for Best Visual Storytelling: “The commitment and effort the filmmakers took to tell the stories of [men and women] trying to better their lives by obtaining a college degree – and what their stories say about our criminal justice system – is nothing short of incredible….The film does honor to its subjects and the debate over the purpose of education and rehabilitation.”
Novick is collaborating with Burns, Botstein and writer Geoffrey C. Ward on several upcoming Florentine Films productions: a three part examination of America’s response to the Holocaust and a series on the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson. Her next solo project, produced by acclaimed filmmaker Laurens Grant, is a major series on the history of crime and punishment in America. Potential future projects include a series on the history of Soviet spying in America, and a series about the public and private lives of remarkable American women. She is a magna cum laude graduate of Yale with honors in American Studies, and lives in New York City.
ADL CEO & National Director
Jonathan Greenblatt is the CEO of ADL and its sixth National Director. As chief executive of ADL, Jonathan leads all aspects of the world’s leading anti-hate organization. He is an accomplished entrepreneur and innovative leader with deep experience in the private, public and nonprofit sectors.
Since becoming CEO in July 2015, Greenblatt has modernized ADL while refocusing it on the mission it has had since its founding in 1913: to fight the defamation of the Jewish people, and to secure justice and fair treatment to all.
Under Greenblatt, ADL has modernized its operations, innovated its approaches to counter antisemitism from all sides and enhanced its efforts to combat extremism in all forms. During his tenure ADL rebooted its Center on Extremism that analyzes and monitors extremists and hate groups; launched “Never Is Now” the largest annual convening in the world focused on antisemitism and hate; created the Center for Technology and Society in Silicon Valley to fight the rising tide of online hate and harassment; partnered with the Aspen Institute to launch the Civil Society Fellowship, an innovative program that builds cohorts of emerging leaders across a continuum of ideology and identity; developed the Sports Leadership Council to engage athletes, teams and leagues to confront bigotry and discrimination more effectively; and executed Stop Hate for Profit, the successful campaign that organized businesses, celebrities, nonprofits and policy makers to fight the rampant racism, antisemitism and extremism on Facebook.
In 2022, Greenblatt released It Could Happen Here, a book that sounds an alarm, warning that hate and systemic violence is gathering momentum in the United States – and that violence on a more catastrophic scale could be just around the corner.
Jonathan serves on numerous corporate and non-profit boards and has been recognized on multiple occasions for his leadership at ADL. He has been named by The NonProfit Times to its list of Top 50 Nonprofit Leaders from 2016-2020. Recode named Jonathan to its inaugural “Recode 100,” a list of the top 100 people in business and technology. He has been named among the Top 50 Most Influential Leaders in the global Jewish community by The Jerusalem Post and as one of the Top 50 Jews to follow on Twitter by the JTA.
Before ADL, Greenblatt served in the White House as Special Assistant to President Obama and Director of the Office of Social Innovation. He came to that role after a long career in business. In 2002, he co-founded Ethos Brands, the business that launched Ethos Water, a premium bottled water that helps children around the world access clean water. Ethos was acquired by Starbucks Coffee Company in 2005. Following the acquisition, Jonathan was named VP of Global Consumer Products at Starbucks and joined the board of the Starbucks Foundation.
In 2009, Jonathan founded All for Good (AFG), the largest database of volunteer opportunities on the Internet. Incubated at Google, AFG developed an innovative strategy to organize the world’s volunteer listings. AFG was acquired by Points of Light in 2011. Jonathan also served as CEO of GOOD Worldwide, a diversified media company and as an executive at REALTOR.com, joining the company as a product manager and eventually heading up its consumer products division. REALTOR went public in 1999 (HOMS) and was acquired by News Corp in 2014.
Jonathan has served as an adjunct faculty member at the Anderson School of Management at UCLA and as a senior fellow at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Jonathan graduated cum laude with a BA from Tufts University and earned his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
CEO, LCCHR
Maya Wiley is the president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights and The Leadership Conference Education Fund. A nationally respected civil rights attorney, Wiley has been a litigator at the ACLU, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Inc, and the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. She has been a program creator in philanthropy, non-profits, government, and higher education. She helped create a criminal justice program for a major foundation in South Africa. Wiley co-founded and led a national policy advocacy organization, the Center for Social Inclusion, now a part of Race Forward, a national policy strategy organization working to end structural racism. She became the first Black woman to be Counsel to a New York City Mayor, Bill de Blasio where she worked to protect and expand civil rights, Minority and Women-Owned Business contracts and broadband access. Wiley became a Senior Vice President for Social Justice at the New School University, where she also founded the Digital Equity Laboratory. While there, she chaired the New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB). As chair, she led the release of the “hold” on proceedings against Daniel Pantaleo whose illegal chokehold killed Eric Garner, and also Co-Chaired the Mayor’s School Diversity Advisory Group that authored two major reports on integrating New York City public schools. Wiley has received numerous awards, and has been a public voice for rights, justice and democracy, through written opinion editorials and as a legal analyst for NBC News and MSNBC.
State of Israel
Isaac Herzog is the 11th President of the State of Israel.
The son of Israel's sixth President, Chaim Herzog and grandson of Israel's first Chief Rabbi, Yizhak Isaac Halevi Herzog, President Isaac Herzog was born in Tel Aviv in 1960, trained as a lawyer and became senior partner in one of Israel's leading Law firms.
In 2003, Herzog was elected member of Israel's parliament, the Knesset, after serving as Government Secretary to Prime Minister Ehud Barak (1999-2001). Throughout his 15 years in the Knesset, Herzog held several parliamentary and ministerial posts, among them Minister of Housing and Construction; Minister of Tourism; Minister of Diaspora Affairs, Society and the Fight Against Anti-Semitism. Herzog's revolutionary term as Minister of Welfare & Social Services is considered his crowning achievement in the Government of Israel. Herzog was a Member of Israel's Security Cabinet, in addition to serving as Government Coordinator for the Provision of Humanitarian Aid to Gaza.
In 2013, Herzog was elected Chairman of the Israeli Labor Party, the founding party of the State of Israel, becoming Leader of the Opposition. Two years later he led the alliance between the Labor Party and the Hatnua Party to form Israel's largest center-left political party of that time – the Zionist Union, which made him a leading candidate for Prime Minister during the 2015 national elections.
In June of 2018, Herzog was appointed Chairman of the Executive of The Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI), the historic organization which laid the foundations of the State of Israel and the largest Jewish NGO in the world. As JAFI Chairman he led the process of restructuring the organization, which reinvigorated it, reaffirmed its prominence within world Jewry, and solidified JAFI's status as a bridge to Jewish communities worldwide and the State of Israel.
On July 7, 2021 Isaac Herzog was sworn in as the 11th President of the State of Israel, following an overwhelming majority vote at the Knesset which constituted a historic landslide victory.
President Herzog published numerous books and articles in Israel and worldwide, and is a sought after speaker in different fields all over the world. He is married to Michal, also a lawyer by profession and an expert in philanthropy, and they have three sons.
Ukraine
Oksana Markarova was appointed the Ukraine’s Ambassador to Ukraine and arrived in DC on Apr 20, 2021. She served in Ukraine’s Ministry of Finance in 2015-2020 as First deputy Minister and Government commissioner on investments and then since 2018 as a Minister of Finance. During her time at the Ministry she was a co-author of Ukraine’s macroeconomic revival program, has conducted unprecedented fiscal consolidation leading to deficit to GDP of 2% and debt to GDP reduction to below 50%, introduced midterm budgeting, gender oriented budgeting as well as negotiated, structured and coordinated successfully two IMF programs and other IFI cooperation programs. During her tenure she and her team has also created UkraineInvest government promotion agency, Ukrainian Startup fund and an eData ecosystem of government public finance portals including spending.gov.ua, openbudget.gov.ua and analytical instrument BOOST, which opened the majority of the public finance data to the public and increased Ukraine in all major international data transparency ratings.
Prior to career in public service Mrs. Markarova spent 17 years working in private equity and financial advisory having leadership roles in ITT investment group, Western NIS Enterprise Fund, Chemonics and and World bank, as well as founded Archidata startup electronic archive company in between service positions in 2020.
Oksana Markarova serves at the Boards of UkraineHouse DC foundation in Washington DC, Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Ukrainian Development Foundation and supports Ukrainian Catholic University and Ukrainian Press Museum-Archive.
She holds BS and MS degrees in Environmental Science from Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in Ukraine and MPA in public finance from Indiana University with academic excellency and best international student awards.
Markarova is married with four children and grandson.
Special Assistant to the President on Technology & Competition Policy
Widely known for coining the term net neutrality in 2002 and championing the equal access to the Internet, Tim Wu writes and teaches about private power, free speech, and information warfare. In recent years, he has been a leader in the revitalization of American antitrust and has taken a particular focus on the growing power of the big tech platforms. His tech breakup proposals, adopted by candidates, formed a significant part of the 2020 presidential debate. In 2021, he was appointed to serve in the White House as special assistant to the president for technology and competition policy.
A professor at Columbia Law School since 2006, Wu has also held posts in public service. He was enforcement counsel in the New York Attorney General’s Office, worked on competition policy for the National Economic Council during the Barack Obama administration, and worked in antitrust enforcement at the Federal Trade Commission. In 2014, Wu was a Democratic primary candidate for lieutenant governor of New York.
In his most recent book, The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age (2018), he argues that corporate and industrial concentration can lead to the rise of populism, nationalism, and extremist politicians. His previous books include The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads (2016), The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires (2010), and Who Controls the Internet? Illusions of a Borderless World (2006), which he co-authored with Jack Goldsmith.
Wu is a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times and also has written for Slate, The New Yorker, and The Washington Post. He once explained the concept of net neutrality to late-night host Stephen Colbert while he rode a rollercoaster. He has been named one of America’s 100 most influential lawyers by the National Law Journal; has made Politico’s list of 50 most influential figures in American politics (more than once), and has been included in the Scientific American 50 of policy leadership. He has testified before Congress on numerous occasions.
Wu is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He served as a law clerk for Justice Stephen Breyer of the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge Richard Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit.
Activist, Journalist, & Author
Masih Alinejad is an Iranian-American journalist, TV presenter, women's rights activist and author of best-selling memoir, The Wind in My Hair. Born and raised in Iran, Masih was a parliamentary journalist in Tehran, where she often got into trouble for her articles on corruption and malfeasance among the lawmakers. In 2009, she was forced to leave Iran after the crackdown on protests against the disputed presidential elections. In 2014, Masih founded the My Stealthy Freedom/White Wednesday campaign against compulsory hijab, which is the largest civil disobedience campaign in the history of Islamic Republic. She has more than eight million followers on her social media accounts. The New York Times has described Masih Alinejad, as "The woman whose hair frightens Iran." In July 2021, after a two-year FBI investigation, the Dept. of Justice charged 4 Iranian intelligence agents with conspiring to kidnap Masih to Venezuela. Today, Masih continues to expose human rights abuses in Iran, as a host of Tablet, a satirical weekly show on the VOA and campaigns against gender apartheid in the Islamic Republic.
D – FL-22nd District
Congressman Ted Deutch represents Florida’s 22nd District in the House of Representatives, home to communities throughout southern Palm Beach County and Broward County. Originally from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Ted has long championed the priorities of the Jewish community, from his days in Zionist summer camp to his pro-Israel activism in college to his leadership roles in local and national Jewish organizations.
Ted first gained national recognition in the Florida State Senate when he helped to pass the nation’s first law mandating that public pension funds not be used to advance Iran’s illicit quest for nuclear weapons. His work led to an invitation to give testimony before Congress on Iran sanctions, strategy discussion with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and after his own election to Congress in 2010, the passage of his own federal legislation to crack down on companies that financially support Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
Ted serves as the Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s influential Subcommittee on the Middle East, North Africa, and Global Counterterrorism. In this role, he has passed legislation advancing U.S.-Israel cooperation in energy, agriculture, technology and trade, fought back against efforts to delegitimize Israel at the United Nations, and championed U.S. foreign aid investments that promote global health and human rights worldwide.
Ted continues to lead on issues of importance to the Jewish community. As a Co-Chair of the Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Anti-Semitism and a member of the Interparliamentary Task Force to Combat Online Antisemitism, the Congressman has worked to ensure the federal government fully addresses cases and trends of anti-Semitism, both at home and abroad.
Ted also serves as the Chairman of the House Ethics Committee and is a senior member of the House Judiciary Committee.
President’s Fellow, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
Taylor A. Dumpson, J.D. is a 2021 President’s Fellow at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. Ms. Dumpson was born in Washington, D.C., and raised on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. After graduating from Wicomico High School, she received her B.A. in Law and Society with a concentration in Social Science from American University and her J.D. with a concentration in Rights and the State from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.
In Spring 2017, while pursuing her Bachelor of Arts degree at American University in the Nation’s Capital, Ms. Dumpson became the first Black woman to serve as president of the Student Government in the University’s 124-year history. In the wake of her ground-breaking election, she was the target of a racially-motivated hate crime on her first day in office, followed by cyber-harassment by members of white supremacist groups. However, Ms. Dumpson did not allow these acts to deter her from her goal of becoming a civil rights attorney, nor did she let it break her.
Instead, Ms. Dumpson fought back by pursuing litigation against the Neo-Nazis who cyber-harassed her. And she won.
Not only did Ms. Dumpson reach a landmark settlement—based on principles of restorative justice—with one of the defendants in her case, she also received a favorable judgment from Judge Collyer of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia Court. Judge Collyer found “that a [causal] nexus exists between the troll storm created [one of the defendants] and Ms. Dumpson’s enjoyment of [American University] and its resources and that Ms. Dumpson was targeted because of her race and gender.” This is one of the first times that a Court has held that online harassment can interfere with one’s use of a public accommodation.
Ms. Dumpson continues to raise awareness on the impact hate and discrimination have on our communities and ways to actively combat them. Ms. Dumpson has shared this message by testifying before Congress and giving a TEDx Talk, and in interviews with various print, television, and radio broadcast media such as CNN, NBC, The Washington Post, The New York Times, WTOP, and WAMU.
Ms. Dumpson has interned with the New York Civil Liberties Union (New York, NY), NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (New York, NY), Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law Stop Hate Project (Washington, DC), Capitol Hill Office of Congresswoman Fredericka S. Wilson (D-FL) (Washington, D.C.), Wicomico County Office of the State’s Attorney (Salisbury, MD), and the District Office of Delegate Sheree Sample-Hughes of Maryland’s District 37-A (Salisbury, MD).
Ms. Dumpson’s personal story is featured along with the narratives of other survivors of hate crimes in a book edited by Arjun Singh Sethi, called “American Hate: Survivors Speak Out.” In addition, Ms. Dumpson is the recipient of the Lawyers’ Committee’s 2018 Frank R. Parker Client Award, the 2019 National Emerging Leader Award, American Association for Access, Equity, and Diversity, a 2019 Floersheimer Center for Constitutional Democracy Summer Fellow, the 2019 Digital Ethics Award, Loyola University Chicago, the 2019 Kay Family Award, Anti-Defamation League, the 2021 Cardozo Center for Public Service Law Student Impact! Gamechanger Award, and the 2021 Cardozo School of Law E. Nathaniel Gates Award.
ADL, Northeast Area Civil Rights Counsel
Amy Feinman serves as Northeast Area Civil Rights Counsel for ADL. In that capacity, she oversees ADL’s civil rights work in 13 states and advises 5 of ADL’s regional offices on core civil rights equities, including countering antisemitism and hate, fighting bigotry and discrimination, safeguarding religious freedom and the separation of church and state, and promoting immigrant and refugee rights. Amy is also playing a lead role in supporting ADL’s work as co-counsel for the District of Columbia in a lawsuit against the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers for harms arising from the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol. Prior to joining ADL, Amy worked as a litigation associate at the law firm Latham & Watkins LLP. Amy is a 2009 graduate of the University of Michigan and a 2012 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
ADL VP, Civil Rights
As Vice President of Civil Rights and Director of Legal Affairs, Steve Freeman provides direction and oversight for ADL’s work on core civil rights equities, including countering anti-Semitism and hate, fighting bigotry and discrimination, safeguarding religious freedom and the separation of church and state, and promoting immigrant and refugee rights.
Steve joined ADL as Assistant Director of Legal Affairs in 1985, and over three decades he has coordinated the preparation of more than 300 amicus curiae briefs submitted to the United States Supreme Court and various appellate courts across the country. Prior to joining ADL, Steve served as the Director of Special Projects for the Greater New York Conference on Soviet Jewry and as a staff attorney at the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (now Human Rights First).
Steve is a graduate of Yale University and Stanford Law School.
ADL Director, Campaigns & Outreach
Shira Goodman is a member of ADL’s Government Relations, Advocacy and Community Engagement (GRACE) Team. She serves as Director of Campaigns and Outreach, coordinating state advocacy across ADL’s 25 Regional offices, developing engagement opportunities for volunteers, and fostering partnerships with civil society organizations. Prior to that, she served as the Regional Director of the Anti-Defamation League's Philadelphia Region, which serves Eastern Pennsylvania, Southern New Jersey and Delaware.
For seven years before joining the ADL, Shira served as the Executive Director of CeaseFirePA, a statewide organization working to end the epidemic of gun violence in Pennsylvania and across the country. Under Shira's leadership, CeaseFirePA became one of the strongest state organizations fighting gun violence and a key partner in the local, state and national gun violence prevention movements. Prior to that, Shira worked as Deputy Director of Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts, a non-profit working for fair courts and equal access to justice, and as a labor lawyer at Ballard Spahr.
Shira is a graduate of the University of Michigan and Yale Law School.
ADL, Sr. Director of International Affairs
Susan Heller Pinto is Senior Director of ADL’s International Affairs Division and Director of the Department of Middle Eastern Affairs. In this capacity, she evaluates and interprets international issues and events and develops ADL policies and programs on these matters. She serves as a liaison to the Jewish community, media and government on issues such as global anti-Semitism, Israeli-Arab relations, U.S.-Israel relations, anti-Zionism, the BDS campaign and other efforts to delegitimize Israel. Ms. Heller Pinto joined ADL in 1993.
She has written numerous publications for ADL, including Questions, Complexities and Context: Insights into Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict; Think. Plan. Act.: Tools for Dealing with Anti-Semitic and Anti-Israel Incidents on Campus, as well as comprehensive analyses of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, the Arab-Israeli conflict and peace process, global anti-Semitism, and other international issues. These reports have been widely distributed to the media, Congress, public officials and throughout the Jewish community.
Ms. Heller Pinto received a Masters of International Affairs from the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs, where she also earned a certificate from the Middle East Institute. A native of Toronto, Ms. Heller Pinto holds a B.A. from the University of Toronto, where she studied history and political science.
ADL SVP, Democracy Initiatives
As Senior Vice President, Democracy Initiatives, Eileen Hershenov develops thought leadership and strategies for ADL's fight against authoritarianism and illiberalism in addition to leading ADL’s emerging litigation capacity. She also oversees ADL’s civil rights team, cross-organizational work on tech policy, the Civil Society Fellowship (a partnership between ADL and the Aspen Institute), and the library and archives work.
Eileen joined ADL in 2018 after serving as General Counsel (GC) for several of the nation’s leading mission-driven not-for-profits. Directly prior to coming to the ADL, she served as GC and head of public policy for the Wikimedia Foundation, which operates Wikipedia, one of the top ten global internet sites. Prior to that, she was GC at Consumer Reports and before that, GC at the Open Society Foundations. Eileen began her legal career clerking for a NY federal district court judge, litigated as an attorney with the ACLU, and then spent three years at the law firm Morrison & Foerster, where among other things, she brought cases supporting racial justice and the rights of women, immigrants, and the LGBTQ+ community, and also litigated and lobbied in the intersection of civil rights and national security.
Eileen began her professional career as a campus and community organizer in New York State, working on environmental issues, transit reform, student and worker rights, and ultimately leading a successful access-to-justice legislative campaign on behalf of victims of toxic substances such as asbestos and DES.
Eileen earned a BA from Yale College and a JD from Yale Law School.
ADL Deputy National Director
As ADL's Deputy National Director, Kenneth Jacobson serves in a number of capacities including representing ADL when CEO Jonathan Greenblatt is not available, writing extensively on ADL subjects, speaking to groups across the country and educating ADL staff and volunteer leaders about the history and legacy of the organization.
Ken joined ADL in 1971. He is the longest serving ADL professional and has served in many roles, including leading the International Affairs, Civil Rights, Marketing and Communications, and Education divisions at various times.
Ken has a BA in history from Yeshiva University and an MA in history from Columbia University.
R-NY 24th District
Congressman John M. Katko was first elected to represent the 24th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives in November 2014. He was re-elected for a fourth term in November 2020. The 24th Congressional District includes all of Onondaga, Cayuga, and Wayne Counties and the western portion of Oswego County.
A Camillus, NY native, John left his 20-year career as a federal prosecutor to run for public office because he believes Central New York deserves strong, independent leadership in Washington.
In Congress, John serves as Ranking Member on the House Committee on Homeland Security and as a member of the House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure.
After graduating with honors from both Niagara University and Syracuse University College of Law, John began his legal career in private practice at a firm in Washington, D.C. It was not long before John embarked on a career in public service, serving first as a Senior Trial Attorney at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and then commencing his twenty-year career as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice. Early in his career as a federal prosecutor, John served as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia and with the DOJ’s Criminal Division, Narcotics & Dangerous Drug Section. In this capacity, John served as a Senior Trial Attorney on the U.S.-Mexico border in El Paso, Texas and San Juan, Puerto Rico.
John and his wife, Robin, ultimately returned to John’s hometown of Camillus, NY to raise their family. For over 15 years, John served as a federal organized crime prosecutor in Syracuse for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of New York. In this role, John led high-level narcotics federal prosecutions, concurrently holding the positions of Narcotics Chief, Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force Coordinator, Binghamton Office Supervisor, Team Leader, and Grand Jury Coordinator. Notably, John served as Supervisor of the Narcotics Section, formulating the Syracuse Gang Violence Task Force and successfully prosecuting the first-ever RICO gang case in the City of Syracuse, which led to a significant drop in the City’s violent crime rate.
John has been honored with the top prosecutor award by three separate Attorneys General, both Democrat and Republican, for his work on the Gang Violence Task Force and international drug-trafficking investigations. John has lectured at Syracuse University College of Law and Cornell Law School and led attorney trainings for criminal investigations and prosecutions worldwide in Moscow, Croatia, Trinidad & Tobago, Brazil, and El Salvador. In 2011, John was selected to be the sole U.S. advisor on a highly sensitive prosecution in Albania.
John retired from the U.S. Department of Justice in January 2013 to run for Congress.
John and Robin, an RN who has spent her career working in women’s healthcare, are college sweethearts and have been married for nearly 30 years. John, Robin, their three children, Sean, Logan, and Liam, and their yellow lab, Henry, are proud to call Camillus home. All three of the Katko boys are enthusiastic hockey players.
John remains active in the Central New York community. He has served as President of the Central New York Chapter of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and is actively involved in other community organizations, including the Onondaga County Foster Parent Program and the Camillus Youth Hockey Association.
ADL National Director of Programs on Antisemitism
Vlad Khaykin serves as the ADL National Director of Programs on Antisemitism. Vlad joined ADL in 2014 as the Associate Director for the Central Pacific Region, leading the office’s international affairs work, representing ADL to leading social media and internet technology companies in Silicon Valley, and delivering all programs related to antisemitism and white nationalism. Before joining ADL, Vlad served as the Assistant Director for Communications and Advocacy for the American Jewish Committee (AJC) in Philadelphia where he advocated on issues related to immigration reform, foreign policy, and human rights with state and federal lawmakers and foreign diplomats. Prior to AJC, Vlad worked in the International Programs department of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston. Vlad earned dual Master’s degrees in Non-Profit Leadership and Near Eastern & Judaic Studies from Brandeis University, where he was awarded the Genesis Fellowship, and a B.A. in Economics and Business Management from the University of California, Santa Cruz. A former refugee from state-sponsored antisemitism in the Soviet Union and a grandson of Holocaust survivors, Vlad holds ADL’s work to secure justice and fair treatment for all deeply personal.
Deputy Attorney General for Public Advocacy, DC Attorney General
Kathleen (Kate) Konopka currently serves as Deputy Attorney General for the Public Advocacy Division of the DC Attorney General’s Office. In this capacity, she oversees the Attorney General’s civil enforcement investigations and actions brought to protect the public interest, including in the areas of consumer protection, affordable and habitable housing, environmental enforcement, workers’ rights, civil rights, elder justice, nonprofit enforcement, antitrust, and fraud against the District. Prior to assuming this position, Kate served as a senior litigator in both the Antitrust Division and Consumer Protection Branch of the US Department of Justice, was Of Counsel at Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll and Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, and served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Columbia.
ADL Counsel, Technology Policy & Advocacy
Lauren Krapf serves as ADL’s Counsel for Technology Policy & Advocacy, leading strategy and operations for ADL’s initiatives to fight online hate, hold Big Tech accountable, and protect targets of digital harassment. Prior to joining ADL, Lauren worked as an attorney in Los Angeles, where she managed trial and appellate litigation and advised employers about issues and policies related to workplace harassment prevention. Lauren was an Ernie Pyle Scholar at Indiana University and Chief Note & Comment Editor of the International Law Review at Loyola Law School. She is currently pursuing a Master’s degree at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy and Practice. In 2020, Lauren was selected as one of New York Jewish Week’s 36 Under 36. In 2021, her work at ADL won Honorable Mention in Fast Company magazine’s “World Changing Ideas” Awards.
D-New Mexico
Ben Ray Luján has represented New Mexico in the United States Senate since January 2021. He previously served as U.S. Representative for New Mexico’s Third Congressional District and House Assistant Speaker in the 116th Congress.
Senator Luján sits on the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation; the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP); the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry; the Committee on Indian Affairs; and the Committee on the Budget.
Senator Luján grew up in Nambé, a small farming community north of Santa Fe, bordered by the Nambé and Pojoaque Pueblos. It was there that he learned New Mexico values, including hard work, dedication, and perseverance, from his family and community.
Since being elected to Congress in 2008, Senator Luján has championed efforts to create good-paying jobs in New Mexico, expand quality health care and protect patients with pre-existing conditions, preserve our natural resources and sacred sites, build a clean energy economy, and uplift the middle-class.
Senator Luján has focused on spurring local economic growth through a number of legislative initiatives. His bill to make it easier for local entrepreneurs to bring their ideas to the marketplace was signed into law, and he has written legislation that would leverage New Mexico’s labs to drive job creation while addressing tomorrow’s energy challenges.
Recognizing that action on the climate crisis cannot wait another generation, Senator Luján has been a leading voice in the fight against climate change. He has developed bold, comprehensive legislation to put the United States on a path to net-zero carbon emissions to combat the climate crisis and grow the economy. This visionary plan has earned praise from climate experts, environmental advocates, and labor groups.
He has also been a fierce advocate for environmental protection in New Mexico. Luján helped lead an effort during the Obama administration to establish national monument designations for the Rio Grande del Norte National Conservation Area and the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks, preserving some of New Mexico’s greatest treasures and tourism drivers. In addition, he helped lead the House effort to protect the greater Chaco Canyon region from harmful oil and gas drilling and dangerous methane emissions.
Senator Luján is a long-time advocate for New Mexico’s acequias and traditional lands. He continually works to ensure funding for these cultural assets. He also supports rural farming and ranching by advancing legislation to help food-producing communities advance entrepreneurship.
Throughout his time in Congress, Luján has fought to increase New Mexicans’ access to quality health care, no matter where they live or how much money they make. He has had legislation signed into law to bolster the Children’s Health Insurance Program and strengthen Medicaid and Medicare. Senator Luján has also worked in a bipartisan manner to secure millions in funding to combat the opioid crisis in New Mexico and increase access to treatment and recovery services.
Senator Luján has been a champion for New Mexico working families. He’s fought to raise the minimum wage, close the gender pay gap, and bridge the digital divide for rural communities. He has been an unwavering supporter of women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and continues to advance causes important to New Mexico families.
Before his election to Congress, Senator Luján served as the Chairman of the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission. As a Commissioner, he worked with his colleagues to develop a renewable portfolio standard to increase clean energy production by New Mexico utilities. He also advocated for first responders, working to overhaul the New Mexico Fire Fund so that all distributions from the fund would go to improving fire services in New Mexico.
Prior to his service on the Public Regulation Commission, Luján was the New Mexico Cultural Affairs Department’s director of administrative services and chief financial officer.
Senator Luján earned his Bachelor’s degree from New Mexico Highlands University in Business Administration.
R – MI-3rd District
Representative Peter Meijer was born and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He's proud to represent Western Michigan, where his family has resided for four generations. Peter's grandfather, Fred Meijer, instilled in Peter a love for West Michigan and inspired him to pursue a path of purpose and service.
Upon graduating from East Grand Rapids High School, Peter enlisted in the Army Reserves. He was deployed to Iraq as a non-commissioned officer, postponing his studies to serve with an intelligence unit at joint US-Iraqi bases in the Baghdad area. While in Iraq, Peter conducted intelligence operations to protect American and allied forces. As a sergeant, he led soldiers and missions that resulted in the detention of enemy operatives responsible for killing American soldiers.
After returning from Iraq in 2011 and finishing his undergraduate studies at Columbia University, Peter joined Team Rubicon, a veteran-based disaster response organization. With Team Rubicon, Peter led humanitarian efforts in South Sudan dealing with a refugee crisis. He also led operations in New York after Superstorm Sandy and Oklahoma after a series of devastating tornadoes.
In 2013, while in the Philippines leading a Team Rubicon response team to Super Typhoon Yolanda, Peter accepted a position with a conflict analysis NGO in Afghanistan. Peter ran the NGO's advisory operations in southern Afghanistan from Kandahar City, managing a large team to help aid workers safely provide relief to the Afghan people. Peter last served as Acting Deputy Director for Afghanistan, delivering emergency assistance to aid workers after kidnappings and targeted killings.
From Afghanistan, Peter obtained his MBA at New York University before returning to Michigan to work in urban redevelopment and real estate.
Representative Meijer was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 2020. He serves on the Committee on Homeland Security as Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Oversight, Management, and Accountability. He also serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. Representative Meijer is also a proud member of the Problem Solvers Caucus, a bipartisan group working to find common ground on many of our country’s key issues.
He resides in Grand Rapids with his wife Gabriella.
ADL Director, Echoes & Reflections
Melissa is the Director for Echoes & Reflections, a Holocaust education program, and develops antisemitism education with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). A former 10th grade English teacher in Newark Public Schools and Fulbright scholar in Poland, Melissa studies the intersection of history education, collective memory, and anti-democratic thought.
Melissa has written curriculum and programs, and trained educators on Holocaust pedagogy, antisemitism education, inquiry-learning, human rights, LGBTQIA+ history, and African American history in the U.S. and Kenya, Ghana, Israel, Poland, UK, and Germany. Melissa received her Ed.M. from Columbia University Teachers College in 2017, focusing on the link between antisemitism and anti-LGBTQ sentiment in former Soviet countries.
Before joining ADL, Melissa worked as a consultant translating primary sources into education programs and curricula emphasizing post-Holocaust memory and cross-cultural communication. She has worked with the Auschwitz Jewish Center, the Borderland Foundation in Sejny, Poland, as well as the Queer Newark Oral History Project, NYC LGBT Historic Sites. Specializing in oral history and uncovering narratives that have been silenced, also holds an M.F.A. in Writing from Rutgers-Newark.
Melissa has presented for The Comparative International Education Society, National Council for Social Studies, and National Council on Public History, among others.
ADL SVP, International Affairs
As Senior Vice President of International Affairs, Sharon Nazarian heads ADL’s work fighting anti-Semitism and racial hatred globally, including overseeing ADL’s Israel office. Sharon joined ADL in 2017.
Prior to ADL, Sharon was active in three worlds: academia, philanthropy and foreign policy. She is the President of the Y&S Nazarian Family Foundation, with a regional office in Israel named the Ima Foundation. She is also the founder of the Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and Chair of its Advisory Board. Sharon taught as an adjunct professor at UCLA in the Department of Political Science, is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations and sits on a myriad of foreign policy boards.
She studied at the University of Southern California (USC), double majoring in Journalism and International Relations, and received her Masters and Ph.D. in Political Science from USC.
ADL SVP & Chief Impact Officer
As Senior Vice President and Chief Impact Officer, Adam Neufeld oversees the work of ADL’s Education, Center on Extremism, Center for Technology and Society and Center for Antisemitism Research. He also spearheads innovation and strategy between the Centers and the organization at large.
Adam joined ADL in early 2018 as the Vice President of Strategy and Innovation after serving as the Deputy Administrator of the General Services Administration. In addition to being the chief operating officer at the 11,500-person agency, he also helped start new initiatives including a group of coders and designers called 18F to work on the government’s most difficult technology issues, an office of evaluation science and innovative financing for real estate transformation. Prior to GSA, he worked in other agencies, including as a lawyer. He also was a consultant at McKinsey & Co., where he served government and nonprofit clients.
Adam has a BS in Neuroscience from Brown University, and a JD from Harvard Law School.
ADL VP, Southern Division
As Vice President of the Southern Division, Allison Padilla-Goodman and her team work daily to fight anti-Semitism and all forms of hate in the Atlanta, Florida, New Orleans and St. Louis regional offices.
Allison joined ADL in 2014 as the Regional Director of ADL’s New Orleans office after many years in academia. Her academic work focused on racial identities and othering. Most recently, she was the Regional Director of ADL’s Atlanta office. Prior to her work at ADL and in academia, Allison was a Senior Research Fellow in the premier Center for Service-Learning in Southeast Asia, worked in public education in New Orleans, and was a community organizer around public safety and culture. She received the Torch of Liberty Distinguished Service award by the ADL New Orleans Regional Board and has become an avid voice for fighting hate in the American South.
Allison earned a B.A. from Middlebury College, an M.A. in Latin American Studies from Tulane University, and a PhD in Sociology from the CUNY Graduate Center.
D – Michigan
Senator Gary Peters has represented the State of Michigan in the U.S. Senate since 2015. Gary is recognized as one of the most effective and bipartisan Senators, according to the non-partisan Center for Effective Lawmaking and the Georgetown Lugar Center. During the last Congress (2019-2020), Gary was recognized as the #1 most effective Senator in the U.S. Senate, despite serving as a member of the minority party – an achievement that hadn’t been accomplished since the non-partisan Center for Effective Lawmaking began collecting data over 50 years ago.
As Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, Gary has focused on combatting domestic terrorism and violent extremism. With recent surges in prominent threats and attacks on synagogues and other religious institutions in communities across the country, Gary convened hearings with senior law enforcement and national security officials that looked at the threat of violent extremism and terrorism against houses of worship and other public spaces. As Chairman, Gary has also convened hearings to examine the actions needed to address the rise of white supremacist, anti-government, and religiously-motivated violence.
Gary has also long-championed the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Nonprofit Security Grant Program, which helps protect houses of worship from rising threats – including providing resources to help congregations secure themselves against targeted attacks.
Gary volunteered for the U.S. Navy Reserve at age 34, where he earned a Seabee Combat Warfare Specialist designation and rose to the rank of Lieutenant Commander. After the September 11th terrorist attacks on our country, he volunteered again for drilling status and served overseas as part of his Reserve duty.
Gary has lived his entire life in Michigan and is a product of Michigan schools. He and his wife, Colleen, have three children.
R – Ohio
Rob Portman was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. Rob was first elected to Congress in 1993, representing Ohio’s Second District for 12 years. In 2005 he joined the Bush administration, first serving as U.S. Trade Representative and then as Director of the Office of Management. In 2010, Rob was elected to represent Ohio in the U.S. Senate.
Senator Portman is the ranking Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. He also serves on the Senate Finance Committee, the Committee on Foreign Relations, and the Joint Economic Committee.
He is the co-chair of the Senate Ukraine Caucus and is also the co-founder and co-chair of the Senate Career & Technical Education Caucus and has been a leader on combatting the opioid crisis and human trafficking.
Rob served as the lead Republican negotiator for the bipartisan infrastructure law that President Biden signed last year. The law will overhaul our nation’s infrastructure and add to the nation’s long-term GDP without raising taxes. He was also instrumental in crafting the 2017 tax reform law.
Senator Portman has been a leader in the fight against hate and extremism. He co-authored the bipartisan Pray Safe Act, which will establish a federal clearinghouse through which faith-based organizations and houses of worship can access information on safety and security best practices, available federal grant programs, and training opportunities. Rob continues his work on these critical issues, and will always be a steadfast supporter of the ADL in its critical mission.
Senior Policy Counsel, National Hispanic Media Coalition
Martin E. Rivera is Boricua from Juncos, Puerto Rico. He currently serves as the Senior Policy Counsel for the National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC). Being raised in Florida, he is aware of the importance of civic engagement and unlocking Latinx civic potential to ensure that members of the Latinx community are in leadership positions when vital decisions are taken.
Before joining NHMC, Martin served as the Director of Government Affairs of the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration (PRFAA). He led the federal and local legislative priorities and agenda before policymakers, industry representatives, community leaders, and other stakeholders. Before PRFAA, he served as a Legislative Assistant for Congressman Darren Soto in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Florida Senate, where he oversaw various issues such as immigration, health care, and the environment.
Throughout his career, Martin has strived to advance policies that protect fundamental rights and provide essential services to communities in need. From helping the Hurricanes Irma and Maria victims to protecting immigrant communities and working to close the digital divide, Martin is dedicated to ensuring that the Latinx community has the resources and opportunities it deserves. Martin is a member of the Florida Bar and earned his Juris Doctor from the Florida Coastal School of Law and his bachelor’s degree from the University of Central Florida.
D - Nevada
Jacky Rosen is a U.S. Senator representing the state of Nevada. Rosen previously served in the U.S. House of Representatives during the 115th Congress where she was rated one of the most bipartisan freshmen members and was a member of the Problem Solvers Caucus. Rosen serves on the Senate Committee on Armed Services, Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP), Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Special Committee on Aging, and the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. She has been a champion for encouraging early childhood education in STEM, especially for young girls. In her first year in the Senate, Rosen also launched the Bipartisan Comprehensive Care Caucus.
Prior to running for elected office, Rosen started her career as a computer programmer and software developer. Rosen is also the former President of Congregation Ner Tamid, the state’s largest synagogue.
Rosen and her husband Larry have one daughter, Miranda. Rosen received her undergraduate bachelor's degree from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis in 1979. Rosen also received an associate’s degree in computing and information technology in 1985 from Clark County Community College — what is now the College of Southern Nevada.
Chair, ADL Board of Directors
Ben Sax is the Chair of ADL Board of Directors. In his 25 years of volunteering for ADL, Ben has served in various leadership positions, including Vice-Chair of the Board, National Chair of Development and New York Regional Board Chair. Ben also assisted in a complete revamp of the organization’s governance structure to bolster leadership, accountability and transparency to sustain the organization’s long-term future.
Ben is a partner at KORE Private Wealth, a multibillion-dollar registered investment advisor that works exclusively with wealthy individuals and their families to help navigate the world around them. Focusing on everything from financial, estate and tax planning to asset allocation and investment, Ben and his team work with clients to achieve their goals through objective thinking and innovative wealth solutions with a mission to educate, inform and help them feel secure in the decisions they make about their financial lives.
He has also taught financial literacy to young adults at several non-profit organizations over the years. Ben has a deep appreciation for the arts, is a graduate of Bowdoin college, has two adult children, two grandchildren and is married to Hollis, a professional photographer.
Co-Founder & Director of Community Empowerment, Project Shema
Zachary Schaffer is a facilitator, educator, and organizer based in Bedstuy, Brooklyn. He serves as the Executive Director of the Council of Young Jewish Presidents where he works to forge transformative multigenerational lay leadership in the Jewish non-profit sector. As a speaker, Zach has trained thousands of leaders across the country in nurturing relationships and understanding across divides. As an advisor and consultant, he supports professionals to build capacity around depolarization, community relations, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
He is Co-Founder and Director of Community Empowerment at Project Shema, an organization that works to train and support progressive leaders to disrupt the spread of anti-Jewish ideas in “progressive” discourse. Zach is a workplace culture & respect trainer with Ta'amod, the Men as Allies consultant for Jewish Women International, and a facilitator with Resetting the Table. He is the President of Friends of Roots, a grassroots Israeli-Palestinian coexistence movement in the West Bank. He also serves on the North American Board of the Union for Reform Judaism, the largest Jewish movement in North America.
He previously served as the Senior Manager of Community Strategy for the Jewish Federations of North America's Israel Action Network and as the Manager of Interfaith Partners for Peace, which brought Christian and Jewish clergy to Israel/Palestine to study conflict and reconciliation from a faith lens. He also founded the Jewish Caucus of the Brooklyn Young Democrats.
He is pursuing an MS in Nonprofit Management at Gratz College and received his undergraduate degree in Rhetoric and Political Science at the University of Pittsburgh.
ADL VP, Center on Extremism
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.
Oren joined ADL in 1998 after working for The New York Times and the Jewish Community Federation in San Francisco. Much of Oren’s 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, Oren 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.
Oren is a graduate of Wheaton College in Massachusetts.
ADL SVP, National Affairs
As Senior Vice President for National Affairs, George Selim leads all external engagement at the federal, state, and local levels as well as community and civic engagement efforts nationally for ADL. The scope of his work also includes national law enforcement outreach and partnerships.
Prior to his appointment at ADL in 2017 as Senior Vice President of Programs, George served in the administrations of Presidents Bush, Obama and Trump. He served as the Department of Homeland Security’s first Director of the Office for Community Partnerships. Concurrently, he was selected to lead a newly created Countering Violent Extremism Task Force to coordinate government efforts and partnerships to prevent violent extremism in the United States. Before assuming these roles, George served for four years at the White House on the National Security Council Staff where he focused on policy development and program implementation matters for both domestic and international security threats. Prior to his work at the White House, George served as a Senior Policy Adviser at the DHS Office for Civil Rights & Civil Liberties. He has also worked at the U.S. Department of Justice, the Arab American Institute, and served one year with AmeriCorps.
George holds an MA from Georgetown University and a BA from Walsh University.
ADL VP, Government Relationship, Advocacy, and Community Engagement
As Vice President of Government Relations, Advocacy, and Community Engagement (GRACE), leads ADL’s federal relations, including engagement on Capitol Hill and with the Executive Branch. He also oversees the agency’s state and local advocacy, as well as its intergroup and interfaith efforts, working with various advocacy organizations and interest groups to build stronger relations.
Max Sevillia joined ADL in 2019 with extensive experience in Washington, focusing on immigration reform, digital rights and policy, civil rights, and community engagement. Most recently, he served the Mayor of New York City as Director of the Office of Federal Legislative Affairs and then as External Affairs Director of the Office of the Chief Technology Officer. Previously, Max represented state and local Latino elected officials at the federal level as director of the Washington, D.C. office of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO). Earlier in his career, he planned and directed immigration reform campaigns as the ACLU’s immigration lobbyist. Max also has extensive direct Capitol Hill experience, having served Rep. Jerrold Nadler and Rep. Alcee L. Hastings.
R – NJ-4th District
Rep. Chris Smith, author of the laws to establish the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism and to elevate the position to Ambassador, was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1980 and is currently serving his 21st term representing the Fourth Congressional District of New Jersey.
A longtime leader in the fight against anti-Semitism, Rep. Smith co-chairs the House Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Anti-Semitism and is a founding member of the Inter-Parliamentary Coalition to Fight Anti-Semitism, where he continues to serve on the Steering Committee, as well as the Inter-Parliamentary Task Force to Combat Online Anti-Semitism.
Rep. Smith chaired the first hearings on anti-Semitism in Congress and successfully launched the first bilateral effort to combat anti-Semitism through the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), which led to 57 states accepting binding commitments to document and fight instances of anti-Semitism across the globe. In 1982, Smith’s first official trip abroad was a human rights mission to Russia on behalf of Jewish refuseniks persecuted by the Soviet Union.
In 2021 Smith’s legislation to elevate the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism to the high-level position of Ambassador and expand the authority of the State Department Office was signed into law. First created in 2004 by an amendment authored by Smith, the Office of the Special Envoy has proven effective in identifying and combatting anti-Semitism throughout the world.
Smith has also been an avid supporter of Israel and a fierce advocate for aid to the U.S. ally, including legislation he strongly supported to replenish the Iron Dome. He has introduced legislation and led congressional action in support of Israel, emphasizing the human rights aspect of Israeli security and seeking to expose the anti-Semitism behind much contemporary hostility to the State of Israel.
A prolific lawmaker, Rep. Smith ranks first among all 435 Members of Congress in authoring bills that have been enacted into law. In like manner, he has authored scores of successful amendments and chaired hundreds of congressional hearings.
Smith is renowned for his legislative efforts in combatting human trafficking. He is the author of our nation’s landmark Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000—the comprehensive, historic law designed to prevent modern-day slavery, protect victims, and enhance civil and criminal penalties against traffickers both within the United States and around the world. He has authored four additional anti-trafficking laws, including International Megan’s Law, which establishes a system of notification to protect children from convicted pedophiles who may seek to travel to abuse children. The law has resulted in over 6,100 denials of international travel by known pedophiles to date. Recently, Smith introduced the Frederick Douglas Trafficking Victims Prevention and Protection Reauthorization Act to bolster and enhance successful programs established by his previous laws.
Smith is also the author of the Sean and David Goldman International Child Abduction Prevention and Return Act—a law to help bring home American children who have been kidnapped overseas.
The former chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, Rep. Smith has authored more than a dozen laws improving educational, homeless, healthcare and other benefits and services for veterans and their surviving family members.
Smith is a senior member on the Foreign Affairs Committee and serves in leadership positions on congressional and international panels, including as: Co-chair of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission; Ranking Republican of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China; Ranking Republican of the Africa, Global Health and Global Human Rights subcommittee; and “Special Representative” on Human Trafficking for the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, the U.S.-supported intergovernmental body based in Europe.
Rep. Smith earned a degree in Business Administration at the College of New Jersey and has been married to his wife Marie for 44 years.
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.
Public Policy Associate, Southern Center for Human Rights
James Woodall currently serves as Public Policy Associate of the Southern Center for Human Rights, Founder/CEO of The Major Wish Group LLC, and former State President of Georgia NAACP. James is also an Associate Minister at Pleasant Grove Baptist Church in Marietta, Georgia. James also served as an Intelligence Analyst in the U.S. Army for 8 years. He ran for State Representative in 2016 and served on the State Committee of the Democratic Party of Georgia. He previously served as the deputy campaign manager for Francys Johnson’s (D) 2018 bid for Congress and as the legislative aide to State Representative Miriam Paris (D) for three years in the Georgia General Assembly.
He has been named to Georgia Southern’s “40 under 40,” and “Alumnus of the Year” in 2020 and was named a 2021 #Atlanta500 Leader by Atlanta Magazine. James is a Fellow of the second class of the Civil Society Fellowship, a Partnership of ADL and The Aspen Institute, and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
ADL VP, Government Relationship, Advocacy, and Community Engagement
As Vice President of Government Relations, Advocacy, and Community Engagement (GRACE), leads ADL’s federal relations, including engagement on Capitol Hill and with the Executive Branch. He also oversees the agency’s state and local advocacy, as well as its intergroup and interfaith efforts, working with various advocacy organizations and interest groups to build stronger relations.
Max Sevillia joined ADL in 2019 with extensive experience in Washington, focusing on immigration reform, digital rights and policy, civil rights, and community engagement. Most recently, he served the Mayor of New York City as Director of the Office of Federal Legislative Affairs and then as External Affairs Director of the Office of the Chief Technology Officer. Previously, Max represented state and local Latino elected officials at the federal level as director of the Washington, D.C. office of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO). Earlier in his career, he planned and directed immigration reform campaigns as the ACLU’s immigration lobbyist. Max also has extensive direct Capitol Hill experience, having served Rep. Jerrold Nadler and Rep. Alcee L. Hastings.
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.
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