May

6 2016

Federation Easton Shabbat: Restoring Civility to Public Discourse

6:30PM - 8:00PM  

Congregation Bnai Shalom 1545 Bushkill Street
Easton, PA

Contact Aaron Gorodzinsky
610-821-5500 x337
aaron@jflv.org

Join us at Bnai Abraham Synagogue for a Federation-sponsored Shabbat with Martin Raffel, who has a long and extensive history working in the Jewish public affairs field. 

His journey began in 1979, when he served as the assistant director of the Philadelphia chapter of the American Jewish Committee. In 1983, he switched gears and served as the executive director of the Pennsylvania Regional office of the American Jewish Congress until 1986.

For the following 27 years, Mr. Raffel was the senior vice president and director of the Task Force on Israel, World Jewry & International Human Rights at the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA). There, he served as the primary resource for a broad range of Israel-related and other international issues for a network of 16 national and 125 local Jewish public affairs/community relations organizations throughout the U.S. (JCRCs). He communicated regularly with U.S. government representative and maintained an ongoing liaison with senior Israeli officials in Jerusalem and the U.S.

In 2010, Mr. Raffel took the lead in conceptualizing, and was named project director, of the Israel Action Network in partnership with the JCPA to combat the assault on Israel's legitimacy and BDS.

He has written numerous articles and op-ed pieces on Israel-related issues, and prepared a chapter on the history of Israel advocacy in the organized American Jewish community as part of the book Jewish Polity and American Civil Society (Roman & Littlefield, 2002).

Mr. Raffel was admitted to both the Israel and the Pennsylvania Bar Associations. He received his law degree from the Hebrew University School of Law in Jerusalem (1976) and a BA in Political Science from Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania (1970).

Most recently, beginning August 1, 2014 Mr. Raffel became an independent consultant.

This event is free. A dessert reception will be take place after the presentation.