News/Events

UPCOMING EVENTS

• February 26, 2010 - 11:00 am
  On Friday, February 26, 2010, at 11:00 am, the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust will host an event entitled “Israeli Soldiers Speak Out: A Discussion of their Experiences and Moral Challenges During Times of War.”  The event will feature Staff Sergeant Avi Webber and Master Sergeant Yoav Earon of the Israel Defense Forces. Co-sponsored with Stand With Us, the discussion will take place at Touro College, 43 W. 23rd Street, and lunch will be served.
  

ARCHIVE OF PAST EVENTS

Recent Events 

• November 22, 2009 - 12:00-2:30
  Touro College’s Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust hosted a panel discussion entitled A Paradigm of UN Bias Against Israel: International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People on the occasion of the 2009 United Nations Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.  Panel members were three distinguished scholars, activists, and human rights authorities: Ambassador Richard Schifter, who served as the  Deputy U.S. Representative in the UN Security Council and U.S. Representative in the UN Human Rights Commission; Dr. Charles Asher Small, Director of the Yale Initiative for the Study of Anti-Semitism; and Jonathan Schanzer, Deputy Executive Director of the Jewish Policy Forum and author of several books including his most recent, Hamas vs Fatah: The Struggle for Palestine.  The event, held at the Center for Jewish History, garnered an overflow crowd of 100 participants. VIEW PRESS RELEASE HERE

• October 21, 2009 - 4:00-5:30
  Touro College’s Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust hosted an event featuring Asaf Romirowsky entitled UNRWA: An Obstacle to Peace. The event was co-sponsored with the organizations Stand With Us and the Zionist Organization of America.  Mr. Romirowsky, Adjunct Scholar at the Middle East Forum and Lecturer in the History Department at Penn State University, provided a unique and important analysis of the operations of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).  The event, held at Touro College's Graduate Division School of Education and Psychology, drew participants from around the College and our co-sponsors' networks across New York City.

• April 21, 2009 - Palais des Nations, Geneva, Switzerland
  Touro College’s Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust commemorated Holocaust Remembrance Day with a panel discussion on anti-semitism that included some of the world’s most distinguished scholars, activists, and human rights authorities. Participating in the panel, which was held at the United Nations in Geneva, were writer Elie Wiesel, actor Jon Voight, Professor Alan Dershowitz, human rights activist Natan Sharansky, Author Shelby Steele and Father Patrick Desbois. Over 150 people attended the event, which was titled “Anti-semitism in the Here and Now.”
• March 18, 2009 – 4:00-5:30
  Event co-sponsored with 3GNY-a NYC based organization for Grandchildren of Holocaust
  Survivors featuring David Gewirtzman, a Holocaust Survivor and Jacqueline Murekatete, a Rwandan Genocide Survivor. Stories of Survival and Hope. Center for Jewish History, 15 W. 16th Street, New York, NY. VIEW PRESS RELEASE HERE

Dr. Yossi Olmert, Dr. Michael Shmidman and Professor Anne Bayefsky

• February 24, 2009 – 4:00-5:30
  Event co-sponsored with the Touro Graduate School of Jewish Studies featuring Dr. Yossi Olmert, noted author, lecturer and journalist. Israeli Post-Election Analysis: What does it mean for the Future of the Jewish Homeland? Touro College, 43 W. 23rd Street, 8th Floor, New York, NY.

 

 

 

• Professor Anne Bayefsky, Ambassador Gabriela Shalev, and Dr. Anthony Polemeni

  December 17, 2008 – 6:00-8:00
  Event on Israel and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights at Sixty featuring the Ambassador of Israel to the United Nations Gabriela Shalev.  Center for Jewish History, 15 W. 16th Street, New York, NY. VIEW PRESS RELEASE HERE

 

 

• November 24, 2008 – 6:30-8:30
  Event marking the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  Genocide, Refugees and the 60thAnniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Messages for the 21st Century.  Featuring Francis Deng, Special Adviser of the UN Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide, Brian Hook, Assistant Secretary of State and Director of the Bureau of International Organizations at the State Department, Sallly Frishberg, Holocaust Survivor, Brian Gorlick, Special Policy Advisor at the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and Olivia Bueno, Associate Director of the International Refugee Rights Initiative.  Center for Jewish History, 15 W. 16th Street, New York, NY.

• Professor Avi Bell

  The Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust commemorated Kristallnacht with a lecture by Professor Avi Bell, entitled “The War on Israel and the Genocide Convention”  on November 4, 2008.  Professor Bell is the Director of the Global Law Forum at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Professor of Law at Bar Ilan University and a Visiting Professor at the University of Connecticut School of Law.  He spoke about the legal definition of genocide and its contemporary application to specific cases.  He considered whether the actions and words of current political leaders and heads of terrorist organizations who threaten the state of Israel fall within the conceptual framework of genocide, and the consequences.  Lively discussion ensued.

Conferences

• “Hijacking Human Rights: The Demonization of Israel by the United Nations” was held in New York City on November 18, 2007, and co-sponsored with the Hudson Institute and the American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists.  There were 200 participants and featured speakers from three continents included:  Former Ambassadors John Bolton, Yehuda Blum, and Max Kampelman; Congressman Thaddeus McCotter; Senator Norm Coleman; Claudia Rosett; Nonie Darwish; Andrea Levin; and Professor Walter Reich former Director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.  Conference speeches were made available on YouTube.
• “Judging Nuremberg: The Laws, The Rallies, The Trials” The Institute co-sponsored this July 2005 conference in Nuremberg, Germany with almost 300 participants.  The conference brought together leading scholars, along with some of the few remaining eyewitnesses of that time to discuss, question, theorize and remember the events that took place in Nuremberg 60 years earlier.  The legacy of the trials and what they mean to jurisprudence today was examined.   

• “Human Rights and Refugees, Internally Displaced Persons and Migrant Workers” The Institute co-sponsored this January 16, 2005 conference in New York City with Metropolitan College of New York.  Topics included:  The Challenges of International Protection, Lessons Learned, Rights and Responsibilities for Protection, Setting the Standards of Due Process, The Case of Migrant Workers.  Conference participants included UN staff from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

• “Tyranny, Justice & The Law: The Nazis and Beyond”  The Institute co-sponsored this July 7-10, 2002 Wannsee Simon Bond Seminar, held in Berlin, with Touro Law School and the Free University of Berlin. The Seminar focused on the corruption of the rule of law in Germany under the Swastika and the lessons for contemporary lawyers and judges.  200 participants, including judges and lawyers, from many countries attended.  Panels were organized around the following subjects:  “Law Under the Swastika,” “The rule of Law in Germany: After the War,” “Morality and the Holocaust,” “The Guild of Nations: The Holocaust as Precedent for Redress,” and “The Individual and the State: Democracy Under Attack.” 

Other Events

• Celebration of Human Rights Day, December 6, 2007 at Touro Law Center featuring the His Excellency Mr. Raymond Wolfe, Jamaican Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations and the Current Chairman of the Social Humanitarian and Cultural Committee of the General Assembly and Mr. Martin Ejidike, Human Rights Officer, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
• “The Legacy of Simon Wiesenthal: Anti-Semitism Then and Now,”Lecture and discussion by Mark Weitzman, Director of the Task Force against Hate and Terrorism and the Associate Director of Education for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, October 25, 2007.
• Seminar on “Litigating Terrorism,” October 11, 2007 cosponsored with Fordham Law School and the American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists.  Gary M. Osen, an expert on terror financing and Alyza D. Lewin, an anti-terrorism attorney presented.
• Holocaust Remembrance Day, April 16, 2007, the Institute presented a film screening of “Conspiracy” at Touro Law Center.  “Conspiracy” retells the story of the 1942 conference at Wannsee, Germany and the planning of  the Final Solution.  Discussion followed.