Justice Gabriel Bach, Justice Gabriel Bach is a highly respected Israeli jurist, author and commentator. In October 1938 the Bach family emigrated from Nazi Germany to Amsterdam, where he continued to attend school. He is the only survivor of his Jewish classmates from this school. In 1940, a month before the invasion of the Netherlands by the German army, the family booked a passage to British Mandate Palestine and settled in Jerusalem. He joined the Haganah in 1943 and attended high school at the Hebrew University Secondary School, graduating in 1945.After a year of studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, he received a scholarship to study law at University College London. After graduating with honors in 1949, he interned in a law office before returning to Israel, where he did military service in the Israel Defense Forces in the Military Advocate General’s Corps from 1951 to 1953, and was discharged from active service with the rank of Captain. In his military reserve duty he served as a judge on the Military Court of Appeals, reaching the rank of Colonel.In 1953 Bach began working in the State Attorney’s Office. In 1961 he was appointed as Deputy Attorney General and as the second of the three prosecutors in the infamous Eichmann trial.In 1969, he was appointed State Attorney. In 1982 he was appointed as a justice of the Supreme Court of Israel and retired in 1997. In 1984 he served as the precedent-breaking Chairman of the Central Elections Committee. He was subsequently appointed as the chairman of several senior government committees and fact- finding commissions.

PROGRAM CHAIR & MODERATOR

Richard D. Heideman is an international litigator on behalf of victims of terror and human rights violations. The law firm of Heideman Nudelman & Kalik PC is based in Washington DC and serves as counsel in challenging US and international matters including as lead counsel in complex civil, corporate and criminal defense litigation cases in federal and state courts in various jurisdictions throughout the United States. The firm serves as lead counsel representing American victims of terrorism in claims brought or pending against Libya, Syria, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the PLO and other organizations and financial institutions accused of providing material support for terrorism. Heideman is the author of “The Hague Odyssey: Israel’s Struggle for Security on the Front Lines of Terrorism and Her Battle for Justice at the United” and has been published or featured in articles in many leading publications, including in the special law review edition published by Loyola Law Review on The Nuremberg Laws and the Nuremberg Trials, arising from The Nuremberg Symposium sponsored by the International March of the Living, Inc. Active in numerous civic affairs, Mr. Heideman served as President of B’nai B’rith International from 1998-2002 and was named by the organization as Honorary President.Currently Heideman serves as President of the American Zionist Movement, Chair of The Israel Forever Foundation, having previously completed a five-year term as Chair of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Lawyers Committee in Washington, DC, five years as Chair of The Herzliya Conference International Advisory Board and three years as the Chair of the Institute for Law and Policy at the Hebrew University Faculty of Law.

Heideman is married to Hon. Phyllis Greenberg Heideman, a former Presidential Appointee to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, who serves as President of March of the Living International.

SPEAKERS

John J. Farmer Jr. is an American author, lawyer, politician and jurist and serves as the Executive Director of The Miller Center for Community Protection and Resilience of Rutgers University. He is the former attorney general for New Jersey and was an assistant U.S. Attorney, and worked at Riker, Danzig, Scherer, Hyland & Perretti LLP. He is the former law school dean and is on the faculty at the Eagleton Institute of Politics. From 2003-2004 Professor Farmer served as senior counsel and team leader for the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (commonly known as the 9/11 Commission). In that position he led the investigation of the country’s preparedness for and response to the terrorist attacks and was a principal author of the Commission’s final report. His book, The Ground Truth: The Untold Story of America Under Attack on 9/11, a reconsideration of the government’s 9/11 response in light of its response to Hurricane Katrina, was published by Riverhead/Penguin Press.

Stephan Kramer is currently the President of the state-government-agency of Thuringia, for the protection of the constitution. He previously served as Secretary General of the Central Council of Jews in Germany from April 2004 until January 2014. He also headed the office of the European Jewish Congress in Berlin. As Secretary General and head of administration of the Central Council’s administrative units he was responsible for 45 employees and the administration of the University of Jewish Studies and the Central Archives of the Studies of Judaism (both in Heidelberg). He served as Chief Security Officer of the Central Council and Security Coordinator for member communities of the Central Council, in cooperation with the German Federal Ministry of Interior, the Federal Criminal Police Office and the Federal Agency for the Protection of the Constitution. He was also responsible for the Central Council’s Jüdische Allgemeine newsweekly. Previously, Kramer worked as a freelance journalist and a political and economic consultant, specializing, among others, in Transatlantic economic and security relations.

Irit Kohn is a Past President of the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists and previously served as the Director of the International Affairs Department for Israel’s Ministry of Justice. A highly respected jurist and expert in international law, Professor Kohn lectures extensively and has been published in prominent periodicals. Professor Kohn has represented the State of Israel and its leaders before international courts and among many topics advocated for the nation’s legal rights in constructing the security fence to combat terrorism. A veteran of the IDF, Professor Kohn served as an officer of the Female Soldiers Unit during the Six Day War when she was charged with responsibility for all female soldiers serving in the Jerusalem area. She is married to Murrel Kohn, who immigrated to Israel from Kentucky, and is the mother of three children and grandmother to four grandchildren.

Elie Honig is the Executive Director of the Rutgers Institute for Secure Communities (RISC). Before joining RISC, Honig served as Deputy Director, and then Director, of the New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice from 2012 through 2018. Prior to joining the Division of Criminal Justice, Honig worked for eight years as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, prosecuting and trying cases involving organized crime, human trafficking, public corruption, and violent crime. Before joining the United States Attorney’s Office in 2004, Honig worked as an associate at the law firm of Covington & Burling, in Washington, D.C. Honig obtained his undergraduate degree from Rutgers College (New Brunswick) in 1997. Honig is Special Counsel to Lowenstein Sandler in the firm’s Roseland, New Jersey, and New York City offices and is also a CNN Legal Analyst.

EVENT SPONSORS

The Paul S. Miller Distinguished Lecture is made possible by Rutgers Law School alumnus Paul S. Miller, Class of 1962, and his wife, Carol. Each year the Miller Lecture features a major voice on such topical issues as balancing national security and individual liberties, the legacy of the civil rights movement, governing in a period of fiscal hardship, and healthcare reform and medical education. Paul Miller is a double degree graduate of Rutgers-Newark, having received his B.A. from the College of Arts and Sciences and his L.L.B. magna cum laude from Rutgers Law School. Born to immigrant parents with limited education and few resources, Miller rose to the top of his profession, becoming executive vice president and general counsel for Pfizer Inc. Miller was a key contributor to the outstanding reputation of the corporation’s law department and board of directors. Paul and Carol Miller have generously supported the creation of the Miller Center for Community Protection and Resilience, as well as a full-tuition scholarship at Rutgers Law School.

The International March of the Living is the premier Holocaust educational program, bringing individuals from around the world to Poland and Israel to study the history of the Holocaust and to examine the roots of prejudice, intolerance and hatred. Since its inception in 1988, more than 260,000 alumni from 52 countries have marched down the same 3.2-kilometer path leading from Auschwitz to Birkenau on Holocaust Remembrance Day – Yom Hashoah – as a tribute to all victims of the Holocaust. Of those who have participated, over 60,000 were from non-Jewish backgrounds. One of the goals of the March of the Living is to teach students of various religions and ethnic backgrounds about the dangers of intolerance through the study of the Holocaust and other genocides and to promote better relations among people of diverse cultures.

EVENT CO-SPONSORS

The International Legal Forum is a proactive legal hub for lawyers, organizations and activists from all over the world, joining in the battle for justice, equality and human rights in Israel and the Middle East.