Jonathan Lincoln is the interim Director of the Center for Jewish Civilization. Prior to joining the CJC he worked with the United Nations in a variety of capacities since 2005. Most recently, Jonathan served as the Senior Coordination Officer for the United Nations Special Coordinator’s Office (UNSCO) based in Jerusalem working on the coordination of UN and international development assistance to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Previously, from 2012 until 2017, he was a Senior Political Affairs Officer at the UN's Department of Political Affairs in New York where he covered political developments in North Africa and supported UN interventions in Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia and Western Sahara. Prior to that he was a Political Affairs officer based primarily in Juba, South Sudan (2010 through 2012), supporting the UN’s engagement in the African Union led negotiations between Sudan and South Sudan. Jonathan also previously worked with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Crisis Group. He holds a master’s degree in Middle East Studies from SOAS at the University of London and a bachelor's degree in Political Science and History from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

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.

Jacques Berlinerblau is the Rabbi Harold White Professor of Jewish Civilization at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Additionally, he serves as the Center for Jewish Civilization’s Senior Advisor. 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 most recent scholarly books include The Philip Roth We Don’t Know: Sex, Race and Autobiography (University of Virginia Press); Secularism: The Basics (Routledge); and Blacks and Jews in America: An Invitation to Dialogue (Georgetown University Press), which he co-authored with Professor Terrence Johnson.

Jessica Roda is an anthropologist and ethnomusicologist. She specializes in Jewish life in North America and France, and in international cultural policies. Her research interests include religion, performing arts, cultural heritage, gender, and media. Her articles on these topics have appeared in various scholarly journals, as well as edited volumes in French and English. The author of two books and the editor of a special issue of MUSICultures, her more recent book (Se réinventer au present, PUR 2018) was finalist for J. I. Segal Award for the best Quebec book on a Jewish theme. It also received the Prize UQAM-Respatrimoni in heritage studies. Her forthcoming monograph, Beyond the Sheitl. Jewish Orthodox Women and Performances in the Digital Age, investigates how music, films, and media made by ultra-Orthodox and former ultra-Orthodox women act as agents of social, economic and cultural transformation and empowerment, and as spaces that challenge gender norms, orthodoxy, and liberalism.

Roda earned Ph.Ds from both Sorbonne University and the University of Montreal. She has served as a fellow at McGill University (Eakin Fellow and Simon and Ethel Flegg), as a visiting scholar at Columbia University (Heyman Center), UCLA (Department of Ethnomusicology), and Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Brazil. Her research has been funded by several programs and institutions in North America and Europe. Roda’s public-facing work has appeared in Times of Israel, LaPresse, TV Quebec, The Huffington Post, Akadem, Radio Canada, France Culture, The Moment, Glamour, and numerous networks in Europe, United-States, and South America (Brazil and Colombia). Beyond her academic life, she is also a trained pianist, flutist, and modern-jazz dancer (City of Paris Conservatory).

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.

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.

Meital Orr is a literary critic with a doctorate in Modern Jewish Literature from Harvard University and an M.Phil. in Hebrew Literature from Columbia University. Her areas of expertise are modern Jewish and Israeli literature and film in comparative context in the 20th and 21st centuries. She has authored numerous articles and publications in these areas, including in the Forward, Shofar and Prooftexts. Currently, she is working on a book manuscript on the largely undocumented convergences between Israeli and Palestinian literature and film in the 21st century.

Dr. Orr teaches across multiple disciplines at the Center for Jewish Civilization, including modern Jewish and Israeli literature, film and history, and Hebrew language. Her Spring courses are: “Re-examining the Middle East Conflict: Israeli and Palestinian Literature and Film,” and “The History of the Jewish People: From Antiquity to Today.” Her fall courses are: “Interfaith Marriage in Literature and Film,” and “Arguing with God: The Bible as Literature” Every semester, she also coordinates “Introduction to Jewish Civilization” and teaches Intermediate Hebrew Language, as well as coordinates the Hebrew Program. Previously, she has taught at Harvard University’s Near East Languages and Cultures Department and at Columbia University’s Department of Middle Eastern Studies.

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.

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.

Ed Husain is a British writer and political advisor who has worked with leaders and governments across the world. He has held senior fellowships at think tanks in London and New York, including at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) at the height of the Arab uprisings (2010-2015). While at CFR, his policy innovation memo led to the US-led creation of a Geneva-based global fund to help counter terrorism.

Husain was a senior advisor to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair (2015-2018). From 2018-2021 he completed his doctoral studies on Western philosophy and Islam under the direction of the English philosopher Sir Roger Scruton. He is the author of The Islamist (Penguin, 2007), The House of Islam: A Global History (Bloomsbury, 2018), and Among the Mosques (Bloomsbury, 2021). His writing has been shortlisted for the George Orwell Prize. A regular contributor to the Spectator magazine, he has appeared on the BBC and CNN and has written for the Telegraph, The Times, the New York Times, the Guardian and other publications. He has travelled to more than forty countries.

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).

Abraham (Armando) Skorka, Ph.D. in Chemical Sciences (1979), Universidad de Buenos Aires; Rabbinical ordination, Seminario Rabínico Latinoamericano (1973); Honorary Professor of Jewish Law, Universidad del Salvador, Argentina (1984); Doctor of Hebrew Letters, Honoris Causa, The Jewish Theological Seminary of America (2011); Doctor, Honoris Causa, Pontificia Universidad Católica Argentina (2012); Doctor of Theology Honoris Causa, Sacred Heart University, Fairfield, Connecticut (2013), Doctor Honoris Causa, Holy Family University, Newton, PA (2021), Doctor of Humanae Letters Honoris Causa, Saint Joseph´s University, PA (2022).

The Eternal Light Award (2016); St. Leo University Center for Catholic and Jewish Understanding, Jan Karski Eagle Award, 2017, Shevet Achim Award, 2018; Council of Centers on Jewish-Christian Relations

Rabbi Emeritus of the Benei Tikva Congregation (1976-2018) and Rector Emeritus of the Seminario Rabínico Latinoamericano (1996-2017), Buenos Aires. University Professor, Saint Joseph´s University, Philadelphia (2018-2020), Gratz College, Melrose Park, PA (2020- 2022); Georgetown University, Washington, DC (2020- present). Author of many articles and several books in Jewish Studies and Jewish-Christian relations, including ´On Heaven and Earth´ with the current Pope Francis (2010, English 2013).

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.

Ambassador (Ret.) Zion Evrony has held several distinguished diplomatic positions in Israel’s Foreign Service. These experiences include serving as the Ambassador to the Holy See; Ambassador to Ireland; Consul General in Houston, Texas; Director of the cadet course for new diplomats; Head of the Research Team on Iran; and Head of the Policy Planning Bureau. Presently, he is a Visiting Professor at the Catholic University of America and was a Visiting Lecturer at both Tel Aviv University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His publications include “What’s Next for Jewish Catholic Ties” (The Times of Israel, 2015); “From Ireland to Israel” (The New York Times, 2010); “The Menorah and the Cross” (Ibid, 2013); Human Rights in International Relations (Hebrew; Open University Press, Tel Aviv); Jewish-Catholic Dialogue: Nostra Aetate, 50 Years On (Editor, Urbaniana University Press, 2016).

Dr. Matthew Levitt is the Fromer-Wexler Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy where he directs the Institute's Reinhard Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence. Previously, Levitt served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis at the U.S. Department of the Treasury and before that as an FBI counterterrorism analyst, including work on the Millennial and September 11th plots. He also served as a State Department counterterrorism advisor to Gen James L. Jones, the special envoy for Middle East regional security, and earned numerous awards and commendations for his government service. Levitt is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and sits on the advisory boards of several think tanks around the world. Widely published, Levitt is the author of many articles, book chapters, monographs, and books. His most recent book is Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon’s Party of God (Georgetown University Press, 2013) and his latest monograph is Rethinking U.S. Efforts on Counterterrorism: Toward a Sustainable Plan Two Decades After 9/11 (2021). Levitt is the creator of the Lebanese Hezbollah Worldwide Activities interactive map and timeline and the host of the podcast Breaking Hezbollah’s Golden Rule. Dr. Levitt held the Andrew H. Siegel Professorship in American Middle Eastern Foreign Policy, Georgetown University, 2021-2022, and was awarded a Georgetown University Faculty and Staff Career Champion award in 2022.

Follow Matthew Levitt on Twitter @Levitt_Matt

David Ebenbach is the author of ten books of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction, winners of numerous awards, including the Drue Heinz Literature Prize, the Juniper Prize, and the Orison Fiction Prize. He teaches creative writing and literature in the Center for Jewish Civilization and is the Assistant Director for Graduate Student and Faculty Programs at Georgetown’s teaching center, the Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship. You can find out more at davidebenbach.com. Find Professor Ebenbach on Instagram and TikTok.

 

Jacob Ware is the research associate for counterterrorism at the Council on Foreign Relations, where his work focuses on violent far-right terrorism and countering violent extremism. Jacob holds an MA in Security Studies from Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service. He also holds an MA (Hons) in International Relations and Modern History from the University of St Andrews.

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).

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.

Sarah-Masha Fainberg is a foreign policy and security advisor, researcher, lecturer, and author focusing on Russian, Eurasian, and Middle Eastern politics. In addition to her role at the Center for Jewish Civilization, Dr. Fainberg lectures at Tel Aviv University’s Faculty of Social Sciences. Previously, she served as Policy Adviser at Israel’s Ministry of Defense. Additionally, she was a research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv, a visiting scholar at Columbia University’s Harriman Institute, and a lecturer of European Affairs at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya.

Sarah has authored and edited three books, including Les Discriminés, L’antisémitisme soviétique après Staline (Anti-Jewish Soviet Discrimination after Stalin, 2014, recipient of Henri Hertz Prize), and Secularism on the Edge: Rethinking Church-State Relations in the United States, France and Israel (2014, with Jacques Berlinerblau and Aurora Nou). Professor Fainberg is a graduate of the Ecole Normale Supérieure (Ulm) in Paris. She holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Politics (Sciences Po, Paris), an M.A. in Russian and Eurasian Studies (Sciences Po, Paris), and two B.A.s in Philosophy and Slavic Studies (Sorbonne).

Andrej Umansky, the Center for Jewish Civilization’s 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.

Dr. Suzanne Brown-Fleming has been featured in the Catholic News Service, Catholic News Agency, and The Catholic Virginian. She has appeared on CNN, EWTN Global Catholic Television Network, and in several documentaries, including Holy Silence (2019), which premiered nationwide on PBS television in 2020. Dr. Brown-Fleming is a 2021 Distinguished Fellow at the Institute for Contemporary History’s Center for Holocaust Studies in Munich and Berlin. She earned her doctorate in modern German history from the University of Maryland (2002). Her publications include ‘May Your Holiness Act in the Interest of Protecting Those Who Remain Morally Thinking People’: Vatican Responses to Antisemitism, 1933 (2017); Nazi Persecution and Postwar Repercussions: The International Tracing Service Archive and Holocaust Research (2016; paperback 2019); and The Holocaust and Catholic Conscience: Cardinal Aloisius Muench and the Guilt Question in Germany (2006), published by the University of Notre Dame in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Her current research project, “Il Papa Tedesco (The German Pope): Eugenio Pacelli and Germany, 1917–1958,” is a study of Pope Pius XII’s relationship to Germany and its bishops, leaders, and people during the Weimar era, the Third Reich, and the Holocaust. Her second project, “Opa War Ein Nazi (Grandpa Was a Nazi): Eduard Geist and the Crimes of the Third Reich,” is Dr. Brown-Fleming’s first attempt to research and write as both a decades-long scholar of the Holocaust and as the biological granddaughter of a devout and locally prominent Nazi.

Jonathan Ray is Samuel Eig Professor of Jewish Studies in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies and is 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.

Dr. Grace Wermenbol is an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service and a Middle East Director at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. She is also a Non-Resident Scholar at the Middle East Institute. The Middle East Policy Council listed her in their 40 Under 40 awards for influential Middle East experts in 2023.

Dr. Wermenbol previously lectured at the University of Oxford, where she taught on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and was a researcher at Oxford’s Department of Politics and International Relations. She is the author of A Tale of Two Narratives (Cambridge University Press, 2021), a study of Israeli and Palestinian societies in the post-Oslo era, and a co-author of IISS’ 2020 and 2021 Armed Conflict Survey (Routledge). She received her DPhil and master’s from the University of Oxford, St Antony’s College.

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.

Rabbi Daniel Schaefer is the Interim Director for Jewish Life. In this role, he oversees the Jewish Life program and supervises the Jewish Life staff team to foster a welcoming, dynamic, and supportive Jewish community at Georgetown. Rabbi Schaefer is excited to build relationships with students and connect around issues of ethics, social justice, and mental and emotional wellness. He is passionate about building pluralistic Jewish communities, making Torah accessible to everyone, and engaging in interfaith dialogue. He offers one-on-one supportive rabbinic counseling and leads Shabbat and holiday services throughout the year. Originally from Connecticut, Rabbi Schaefer graduated with a BA in History from Stanford University and wrote his honors thesis on early 20th-century American Judaism. He earned his MA in Jewish Studies and received ordination from the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College. Before becoming a rabbi, he worked as an entrepreneur and ghostwriter, guided students at a therapeutic wilderness program, and served in AVODAH: The Jewish Service Corps. He has studied at Mechon Hadar, the Hartman Institute, the Jewish Theological Seminary, and Hebrew Union College. In his free time, he loves writing, basketball, and hiking in the woods with his dog Ruby.

Marisa Morrison joined the CJC team in the summer of 2023. She was born in Tokyo and lived there until the age of fifteen when she moved to the U.S. In 2023, she received her B.S. from Georgetown University (SFS’23), where she majored in Culture and Politics with a focus on gender and conflict and minored in Jewish Civilization. Marisa has previously worked as a student coordinator organizing Georgetown’s New Student Orientation, and she has also worked at the Red House to design a new curriculum focused on environmental sustainability. In her free time, Marisa enjoys playing soccer and basketball and finding gardens to explore.

Sammie Feldbaum started with the CJC in Fall 2023. Driven by a desire to understand human dynamics, Sammie left her native NYC to study at Boston University, and graduated in 2023 with a B.S. in Public Relations and B.A. in Psychology. She is excited to combine her interests in culture, community, and education at the CJC and work to encourage meaningful dialogue across the Georgetown and DC communities. Sammie’s previous experience has centered around public relations, communications, non-profit work, and education. In her free time, she loves immersing herself in all-things DC, whether that means visiting the museums, walking along the Potomac, or searching for the best food in Chinatown.

Professor Elizabeth Stanley became Chair of the Center for Jewish Civilization’s Executive Committee in July of 2020. She is an Associate Professor of Security Studies at Georgetown University. Previously, she served as Associate Director of Georgetown’s Security Studies Program.

Professor Stanley served as a U.S. Army intelligence officer in South Korea, Germany and on Balkans deployments, leaving service as a captain. She created Mindfulness-based Mind Fitness Training (MMFT)®, and has taught MMFT to thousands in civilian and military high-stress environments. Additionally, she is a certified practitioner of the body-based trauma therapy, Somatic Experiencing. Her book, Paths to Peace, won the 2009 Edgar S. Furniss Award for its “exceptional contribution to the field of national security.”

Professor Stanley received her B.A. in Soviet and East European Studies from Yale University. She holds a Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University and an M.B.A. in technology strategy and organizational behavior from MIT’s Sloan School of Management. Her latest book is titled Widen the Window: Training Your Brain and Body to Thrive During Stress and Recover from Trauma.