Jacques Berlinerblau is the Rabbi Harold White Professor and Director of Jewish Civilization in the Walsh School of Foreign Service. Holding separate doctorates in Sociology and ancient Near Eastern languages he has published 8 books and written dozens of scholarly articles on subjects ranging from Secularism, to Jewish-American literature, to African-American and Jewish-American relations. His next book project is on the fiction of Philip Roth.

Anna Sommer Schneider received her Ph.D. from the Department of Jewish Studies at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland, where she taught from 2007-2010. She is the author of She’erit Hapletah: Surviving Remnant. The Activities of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in Poland, 1945-1989, 2014(published in Polish) and co-author of Rescue, Relief and Renewal: 100 Years of the Joint in Poland, 2014. She is also the author of numerous articles on Holocaust memory, the history of the Jews in post-World War II Poland, and history of anti-Semitism, published both in Polish and English. Her most recent writings include The Survival of ‘Yiddishkeit’: Impact of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee on Jewish Education in Poland, 1945-1989 in Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry, Vol. 30.  She also served as an educator and guide at the State Museum of Auschwitz-Birkenau in Oświęcim from 1998-2018.

Ira N. Forman is a Senior Fellow on Anti-Semitism at the Center for Jewish Civilization and a Senior Fellow at the Moment Institute. In the fall of 2018, he was appointed Senior Advisor on Anti-Semitism at Human Rights First.

Mr. Forman served as the State Department’s Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism from 2013-2017.  From 2011-2012 he served as the Jewish Outreach Director for the Obama for America campaign. He also served for nearly 15 years as the Executive Director of the National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC).

Mr. Forman received his B.A. from Harvard University where he graduated Magna Cum Laude in Government. He received his M.B.A. from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. He co-edited and wrote for the reference book Jews In American Politics.

Jessica Roda joined the CJC in the fall of 2018 as an Assistant Professor of Jewish Civilization. She is an anthropologist and ethnomusicologist trained in European and North American schools and has published several peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and a monograph (Se réinventer au present. Les Judéo-espagnols de France, 2018, Presses Universitaires de Rennes) on the political implications of Sephardic and Arab-Jewish music in France, Spain, and Morocco. Dr. Roda is currently working on a second manuscript based on her ethnography of Hasidic life in Montreal and New York City (Beyond the Sheitl: Jewish Women and Performances in the Digital Age). She teaches the courses, “Music, Politics, and International Affairs,” “Muslims and Jews. New Perspectives,” and “Mapping Jewish life in North America.”

Terrence L. Johnson is an associate professor of religion and politics in the Department of Government and an affiliate member of the Department of African American Studies at Georgetown University. Johnson is also a senior research fellow at the Berkley Center and serves on the executive committee of the Center for Jewish Civilization. His research interests include ethics, political theory, African American religions, and religion and public life. He is the author of Tragic Soul-Life: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Moral Crisis Facing American Democracy (2012) and serves as co-editor of the Duke University Press Series Religious Cultures of African and African Diaspora People. Johnson is completing a manuscript tentatively titled We Testify with Our Lives: Black Power and the Ethical Turn in Politics, which explores the decline of Afro-Christianity in the post-Civil Rights Era and the increasing efforts among African American leftists to imagine ethics and human rights activism within Black politics. Johnson holds a B.A. from Morehouse College, an M.Div. from Harvard Divinity School, and a Ph.D. from Brown University.

Bruce Hoffman has been studying terrorism and insurgency for over four decades. He is a tenured professor in Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service and until recently was director of its Center for Security Studies and Security Studies Program. Hoffman is also visiting Professor of Terrorism Studies at St Andrews University, Scotland. He previously held the Corporate Chair in Counterterrorism and Counterinsurgency at the RAND Corporation, where he was also director of RAND’s Washington Office and vice president for external affairs. Hoffman was appointed by the U.S. Congress as a commissioner on the 9/11 Review Commission and has been Scholar-in-Residence for Counterterrorism at the Central Intelligence Agency; adviser on counterterrorism to the Coalition Provisional Authority, Baghdad, Iraq; and, an adviser on counterinsurgency to Multi-National Forces-Iraq Headquarters, Baghdad, Iraq. Hoffman’s most recent books include The Evolution of the Global Terrorist Threat (2014); Anonymous Soldiers (2015); and, Inside Terrorism (3rd edition, 2017). Hoffman is currently a Wilson Center Global Fellow, a visiting senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a senior fellow at the U.S. Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Center.

Jonathan Ray is Samuel Eig Associate Professor of Jewish Studies in the Department of Theology and a faculty fellow at the Berkley Center at Georgetown University. He previously served as the Hilda Blaustein Post-Doctoral Fellow at Yale University from 2003 to 2005 and as the Maurice Amado Visiting Assistant Professor of Sephardic Studies at UCLA from 2005 to 2006. Ray is the author of After Expulsion: 1492 and the Making of Sephardic Jewry (2013) and The Sephardic Frontier: The Reconquista and the Jewish Community in Medieval Iberia (2006), as well as numerous journal articles and book chapters. He holds a B.A. from Tufts University and a Ph.D. from the Jewish Theological Seminary.

Tamara Cofman Wittes is a senior fellow in the Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings, where she writes on US Middle East policy, regional geopolitics, and US-Israel relations. She served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs during the Obama Administration. Wittes serves on the board of directors of the National Democratic Institute and the advisory boards of the Israel Institute and Divergent Options.

Wittes co-hosts the weekly podcast, Rational Security. She wrote Freedom’s Unsteady March: America’s Role in Building Arab Democracy and edited How Israelis and Palestinians Negotiate. She is now researching a book on US relations with autocratic allies, tentatively titled Our SOBs.

Father Patrick Desbois, president of Yahad-In Unum, has devoted his life to confronting anti-Semitism and furthering Catholic-Jewish understanding. His research has greatly expanded the scope of understanding concerning the Holocaust in Eastern Europe. His book, The Holocaust by Bullets, documents those findings.

Father Desbois is the director of the Episcopal Committee for Relations with Judaism, serves as a consultant to the Vatican, and was a personal aide to the late Archbishop of Paris, Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger. He was awarded the Medal of Valor by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Humanitarian Award of the U.S. Holocaust Museum, and honorary doctorates from Hebrew University, and Bar Ilan University in Israel, amongst other honors.

Most recently serving as the Israeli Ambassador to the Holy See (2012-2016), Zion Evrony has held several distinguished diplomatic positions, including serving as Israel’s ambassador to Ireland and as consul general in Houston, Texas. Ambassador Evrony frequently publishes and gives lectures on topics including the Middle East, Jewish-Catholic dialogue, and Israel-Vatican relations.

His publications include “What’s Next for Jewish Catholic Ties” (The Times of Israel, 2015) and “The Menorah and the Cross” (Ibid., 2013).

Rabbi Rachel Gartner has served as the Director for Jewish Life at Georgetown University since 2011.  She is the author of numerous pieces appearing in The Huffington Post, The Hill, The Washington Post, and in national Jewish justice media. Rabbi Gartner is a co-chair of the national board of T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, and a co-author of Moving Tradition’s nationally acclaimed Rosh Hodesh: It’s A Girl Thing Sourcebook.

Sara Grayson received her M.A. and B.A. in Jewish Education and Jewish Studies, respectively, from Baltimore Hebrew University.

She has previously taught Hebrew language at American University in Washington, D.C., Temple Oheb Shalom in Baltimore, MD and Baltimore Hebrew University. She has also been an on-line Hebrew Instructor for the U.S. Air Force. She is a certified Oral Proficiency Interview Tester of Hebrew by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL).

Father Dennis McManus, Adjunct Lecturer, teaches courses on the history of interreligious conflict, as well as Holocaust studies with Fr. Patrick Desbois. He holds a doctorate in historical theology from Drew University and serves as Delegate for Jewish Affairs for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Fr. McManus held the Smilow Chair in Jewish-Christian Relations at the John Paul II Center in Washington, DC from 2003-2006. His research focuses on the intersection of anti-Semitism and post-Holocaust Christian liturgies. Fr. McManus will deliver a paper in Sibiu, Romania in the spring of 2019 on the elimination of anti-Jewish language in the liturgical texts of Catholic and Orthodox Churches. He has taught at Georgetown since 1997.

Meital Orr holds a doctorate in Modern Jewish Literature from Harvard University and an M.A. in Hebrew Literature from Columbia University. She teaches courses of comparative Jewish literature and culture, and Hebrew language at Georgetown University’s Center for Jewish Civilization.

Previously, Dr. Orr has taught at Harvard University’s Near East Languages and Cultures Department and at Columbia University’s Department of Middle Eastern Studies.

Her recent publications focus on parallel depictions and thematic intersections between Israeli and Palestinian literature and film. Her current project is on the convergent experiences of Israeli and Palestinian women in recent literature and film.

Danielle Pletka is a visiting lecturer at the Center for Jewish Civilization and an adjunct professor at the Walsh School of Foreign Service. She is also the Senior Vice President for foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). Before joining AEI, Ms. Pletka was a longtime senior professional staff member for the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, where she specialized in the Near East and South Asia.

Ms. Pletka has authored, coauthored, and coedited a variety of studies and book chapters, including the report “Tehran Stands Atop the Syria-Iran Alliance” (Atlantic Council, 2017), and the chapter “America in Decline” in Debating the Obama Presidency (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016).

Ambassador Dennis Ross is Counselor and Ziegler Distinguished Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Ambassador Ross played a leading role in shaping U.S. involvement in the Middle East peace process within the H.W. Bush and Clinton administrations. He was instrumental in assisting Israelis and Palestinians to reach the 1995 Interim Agreement, successfully brokering the 1997 Hebron Accord, and facilitating the 1994 Israel-Jordan peace treaty.

Ambassador Ross has worked closely with Secretaries of State James Baker, Warren Christopher, and Madeleine Albright. He was awarded the Presidential Medal for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service by President Clinton.

Rabbi David Saperstein most recently worked at the State Department as the U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom from 2014-2017. He has also served as Director and Counsel at the Religious Action Center and serves on the board of numerous national organizations. In 1999, he was elected as the first Chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. In 2009, he was appointed by President Obama as a member of the first White House Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. His co-authored the book Jewish Dimensions of Social Justice: Tough Moral Choices of Our Time (1998).

Ori Z. Soltes teaches across a range of disciplines. He is the former Director the B’nai B’rith Klutznick National Jewish Museum. As co-founding Director of the Holocaust Art Restitution Project he has spent twenty years focused on the issue of Nazi-plundered art. Soltes has authored and edited 19 books and scores of articles and exhibition catalogue essays. Recent volumes include Our Sacred Signs: How Jewish, Christian and Muslim Art Draw from the Same Source; The Ashen Rainbow: Essays on the Arts and the Holocaust; Mysticism in Judaism. Christianity and Islam: Searching for Oneness; Tradition and Transformation: Three Millennia of Jewish art and Architecture; Magic and Religion in the Greco-Roman World: The Beginnings of Judaism and Christianity; and God and the Goalposts: A Brief History of Sports, Religion, Politics, War, and Art.

Moran Stern is a PhD candidate in Political Science at the University of Maryland, College Park and a Graduate Fellow in Advanced Israel Studies. Since 2012, Stern has been teaching courses at the Center for Jewish Civilization on Israel and the contemporary Middle East. Moran holds an M.A. in International Relations, Economics, and Middle East Studies from the Johns Hopkins University (SAIS) and a B.A. in Philosophy and Communications from Saint Francis College, New York. He speaks Hebrew and Arabic.

Andrej Umansky, the Center for Jewish Civilization’s Braman Post-Doctoral Fellow, also serves on the Board of Directors of Yahad in Unum. As a member of the leadership team at Yahad, Mr. Umansky works to advance the mission of the organization through forensic investigation, academia, and community engagement.

Brittany Fried joined the CJC team in Summer 2019. Her upbringing in Hong Kong, Singapore, London, and around the United States inspired her interest in post-conflict and interreligious education. This shaped her undergraduate experience at Georgetown University (SFS’19), through which she pursued a B.S. in Foreign Service with a major in Regional and Comparative Studies of Asia and Africa and a certificate in Jewish Civilization. Brittany has previously co-published a leadership curriculum implemented at schools in India, South Africa, the Philippines, Hong Kong, China and Cambodia; conducted post-conflict education research in Rwanda and Timor-Leste; and served as an Anti-Defamation League intern, D.C. Public School Global Curriculum Fellow and Berkeley Center Education and Social Justice Fellow.

Bethania Michael became a part of the CJC team in Fall 2019. The Marylander graduated from Georgetown University (SFS '19) in May 2019, after majoring in Regional and Comparative Studies with a concentration on Africa and the Middle East. Additionally, she received a certificate in Diplomatic Studies and took a number of CJC courses. Throughout her time at Georgetown, her academic and professional experiences were guided by her long-time interest in migration, gender, and security issues in the Horn of Africa and the Middle East. On campus, she was a coordinator for the Center for Social Justice's D.C. Schools Project, as well as a fellow in the Undergraduate Scholars Program for the African Studies Program. As a fellow, she completed an independent research project on migration issues in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Off campus, she interned for the Africa Center for Strategic Studies.

Jocelyn Flores became a part of the CJC team in July, 2017. Originally from Miami, Florida, Jocelyn is a first-generation college graduate. She received her B.A. from Georgetown University (COL’17), where she majored in Government and minored in Jewish Civilization. Prior to working for the CJC, she interned for the State Department’s Office of Religion in Global Affairs under the former Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, Ira Forman.

Professor Hoffman became chair of the Center for Jewish Civilization’s Executive Committee in January of 2018. Previously, Professor Hoffman held the Corporate Chair in Counterterrorism and Counterinsurgency at the RAND Corporation and was Director of RAND’s Washington, D.C. Office. He was recently appointed by the U.S. Congress to serve as a commissioner on the Independent Commission to Review the FBI’s Post-9/11 Response to Terrorism and Radicalization.

Professor Hoffman was Scholar-in-Residence for Counterterrorism at the CIA from 2004-2006, an adviser on counterterrorism to the Office of National Security Affairs’ Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, Iraq in 2004, and an adviser on counterinsurgency to the Strategy, Plans, and Analysis Office at Multi-National Forces-Iraq Headquarters in Baghdad, Iraq from 2004-2005.