Read About the Panelists for Israel and the Question of Antisemitism
Ira Forman is currently the Visiting Professor of Contemporary Antisemitism at Georgetown University and Senior Fellow at Georgetown’s Center for Jewish Civilization. He also serves as the Senior Advisor for Combatting Antisemitism at Human Rights First and a Senior Fellow at the Moment Institute.
He served as Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism (SEAS) for the US Department of State from 2013-2017. In his nearly four years as SEAS, he traveled to over 30 countries and five continents to advocate on behalf of Jewish communities. He was responsible for proposing and coordinating government strategies to counter antisemitism in over 50 countries. He tracked worldwide antisemitism on an ongoing basis and assisted in the editing of the Department’s Human Rights and International Religious Freedom reports as they relate to antisemitism. Forman worked closely with US embassies and consulates as well as State Department bureaus to provide guidance and protect Jewish communities. He also organized with NGOs, religious leaders, parliamentarians and other stakeholders to advance policies and counter specific antisemitic incidents. He collaborated with the US Mission to the United Nations as well as the Mission to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to implement programs and policies to combat antisemitic activity.
From 2011-2012, Forman served as the Jewish Outreach Director for the Obama for America campaign. He served for nearly 15 years as the Executive Director of the National Jewish Democratic Council and spent four years with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee where he worked as Political Director and Legislative Liaison. He has also served on the boards of a number of Jewish nonprofit organizations.
Throughout his career he has spoken and written extensively on Jewish history and public policy. Forman co-edited and wrote for the reference book Jews In American Politics. He has written articles on these topics for the Encyclopaedia Judaica. He also staffed and helped edit the volume Democrats and the American Idea in his role as a Fellow in American Politics and the Economy at the Center for National Policy.
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.
Dr. Michael Berenbaum directs the Sigi Ziering Institute, which explores the ethical and religious implications of the Holocaust. The Institute is located at American Jewish University in California, where he is also a professor of Jewish studies. Additionally, he is a writer, lecturer and teacher consulting in the conceptual development of museums and films.
In 2015, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum honored Dr. Berenbaum with its National Leadership Award for his decades of service and contributions to Holocaust memory and education. From 1988 to 1993, Dr. Berenbaum oversaw the creation of the Museum, serving as project director, and later was director of the US Holocaust Research Institute at the Museum, now the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies. Dr. Berenbaum served as deputy director of the President’s Commission on the Holocaust, which led to creating the Museum. Starting in 1997, he served for three years as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, now the USC Shoah Foundation.
Dr. Berenbaum has authored or edited 22 books, scores of scholarly articles and hundreds of journalistic pieces. His books include The World Must Know: The History of the Holocaust as Told in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; After Tragedy and Triumph: Modern Jewish Thought and the American Experience; Not Your Father’s Antisemitism: Hatred of the Jews in the 21st Century and Mosaic of Victims: Non-Jews Persecuted and Murdered by the Nazis. In film, Dr. Berenbaum co-produced One Survivor Remembers: The Gerda Weissmann Klein Story, which received an Emmy Award in 1995 and an Academy Award in 1996. He has been a historical consultant on numerous other films and documentaries.
A graduate of Queens College and Florida State University, Dr. Berenbaum also attended The Hebrew University, the Jewish Theological Seminary and Boston University. He has won numerous fellowships and was given a Doctor of Divinity (honoris causa) from Nazareth College and a Doctor of Humane Letter (honoris causa) from Denison University.
