Join us for an important and timely event featuring a conversation with three Israeli college students at Columbia University. They will share their efforts to build bridges on campus with Palestinian students who are also committed to creating a path toward peace and reconciliation. As part of their work, they were advocating tirelessly for the release of Mohsen Mahdawi from prison and opposing his deportation. They will discuss their collaboration with Mahdawi and tell us all about the successful campaign for his release.

Moderated by Adi Mahalel

The Gaza war has stimulated discussions which were already brewing long before Oct 7th 2023 about the past and the future of post WWII international order, law and justice. The conversation will focus on recent and ongoing developments - the proceedings before the ICJ and the ICC, as well as domestic cases pursued under the doctrine of universal jurisdiction. What is the role of Palestinian human rights lawyers and activists in these developments and what are, and what should be, the response of Israel and of the United States? 

Soon after Israel’s war on Gaza following the Oct. 7 massacres, Lee–as an Israeli citizen experiencing a gap between aspirations for Israel as he has grown up with and what he saw in reality, and as a historian with tools to collect and assess sources and piece a bigger picture, and given the dearth of reporting in Israel on any of these (until very recently)–began piecing together a picture of the progression of the war,  to understand the extent of Palestinian civilian death toll and injuries; extent of dehumanization of Palesitnians by Israel (government, military, individuals); acts and omissions by the government with respect to the hostages; the role of the media (both propaganda and non-reporting); measures toward ethnic cleansing; rules of engagement; situation of humanitarian aid; US support; and other. This information is provided as a ‘public service’ through Lee’s constantly updated website (Heb/Eng): https://witnessing-the-gaza-war.com/

Hassan Jabarin is the founder of Adalahand is its general and legal director since 1996. He holds an LLB in Law and a BA in Philosophy from Tel Aviv University, an LLM in International Human Rights from American University Washington College of Law, and a PhD in Law from Hebrew University. Over the last 30 years, he has litigated scores of landmark constitutional law cases regarding Palestinian citizens of Israel, including the Palestinian leadership in Israel, and international humanitarian law cases concerning Palestinians in the 1967 Occupied Territory before the Israeli Supreme Court.

Are There Moral Constraints within Judaism on the Exercise of Jewish Sovereignty?

Rabbi Professor Ismar Schorsch: is chancellor emeritus and the Rabbi Herman Abramovitz Distinguished Service Professor of Jewish History at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. One of the world’s leading experts on Wissenschaft des Judentums, the scholarly movement that gave rise to modern academic Jewish Studies, Schorsch has authored many books, including, most recently, Better a Scholar than a Prophet: Studies on the Creation of Jewish Studies (2021) and Leopold Zunz: Creativity in Adversity (2016).

Through Haggai Matar’s critical lens we learned of the Israeli government’s extraordinary step to bar the entry of journalists to cover Gaza and the compliance of the spectrum of Israel’s mainstream media with this situation. The atrocities committed in Gaza are not covered in mainstream channels. While the information is still accessible through other local and international channels and sources, many people do not want to know.

The role of independent media becomes that much more important under such circumstances. Haggai described +972/Local Call’s extensive links between its journalists and the hundreds of Palestinian journalists who are in Gaza and the West Bank, as well as with other Israeli and international platforms, for robust coverage.

Professor Rashid Khalidi received his BA from Yale in 1970, and his D.Phil. from Oxford in 1974. He was editor of the Journal of Palestine Studies, president of the Middle East Studies Association and an advisor to the Palestinian delegation to the Madrid and Washington Arab-Israeli peace negotiations from October 1991 until June 1993. He is author of eight books, among them The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017 and Brokers of Deceit: How the U.S. has Undermined Peace in the Middle East.

Rabbi Seidler-Feller challenged us to infuse the political, national state of Israel, and the idea of Zionism, with Jewish values of humanism, humility, and care for the other. As he wrote "our ambitious task is to reclaim and return to the humanistic spirit of the Zionist revolution that has been eclipsed by messianic politics, chauvinistic nationalism and the pursuit of power, and formulate an inclusive and principled Jewish national vision."

David N. Myers is Distinguished Professor of History and holds the Sady and Ludwig Kahn Chair in Jewish History at UCLA, where he serves as the director of the UCLA Luskin Center for History and Policy. He also directs the UCLA Bedari Kindness Institute, the UCLA Initiative to Study Hate, and the UCLA Dialogue across Difference Initiative. He is the author or editor of many books in the field of Jewish history, including, with Nomi Stolzenberg, American Shtetl: The Making of Kiryas Joel, a Hasidic Village in Upstate New York (Princeton, 2022), which was awarded the 2022 National Jewish Book Award in American Jewish studies. From 2018-2023, he served as president of the New Israel Fund.

Zvi Ben-Dor Benite is Professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies as well as Chinese history at NYU. He has researched past and present intersections of Muslim, Arab and Jewish identities. He is the author of several books on Islam in Chinese and Asian history and is editor of Middle Eastern Jewish Thought. Zvi is a one of the founders of the Mizrahi Civic Collective, a board member of Academia for Equality (האקדמיה לשוויון) and a member of Magen David Synagogue in downtown Manhattan.

Mikhael is the director of the Alliance Fellowship Program and an activist in the Israeli Faithful Left. He previously led the progressive think tank Molad and, before that, directed the veterans' organization Breaking the Silence. His book, End of Days: Tradition and Power in Israel, was translated into English in 2023. Most recently, he published a Hebrew collection titled Sermons from the Abyss. He lives in Jerusalem with his wife, Yael, and their three children, Ruth, Sarai, and Noach.

Bringing Voices from Gaza and the West Bank

Amira Hass (Hebrew: עמירה הס; born 28 June 1956) is an Israeli journalist and author, mostly known for her columns in the daily newspaper Haaretz covering Palestinian affairs in Gaza and the West Bank, where she has lived for almost thirty years.

It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Noa shared the wide array of rights advanced by the Association for Civil Rights—LGBTI, women, social and economic rights, prisoners and detainees, and more.

While some of these areas saw significant progress, a constant has been rights violations embedded in the occupation and inequality for Palestinians in Israel. Noa shared examples of different sets of laws applying to Jews and to Palestinians.