Co-Founder and President

Once named by The Forward as one of America’s top 50 Jewish leaders, Charles Jacobs is a journalist and long-time social activist who, over the better part of four decades, has founded human rights and pro-Israel organizations to deal with unmet challenges. Some of these have become national institutions.

CAMERA — In 1989, responding to widespread mainstream media bias against Israel, Charles co-founded with Andrea Levin the Boston branch of CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis), now the organization’s national office. Today, CAMERA is the pre-eminent Middle East media watchdog organization in the United States.

American Anti-Slavery Group — In 1993, in the face of reports of modern-day human bondage, particularly in Africa, where Arabs and Muslims were enslaving black Africans, Charles, along with African Christians and Muslims, founded the American Anti-Slavery Group. The organization brought unprecedented international attention to the enslavement of tens of thousands of mostly Christian Africans in Sudan by militias armed by the genocidal Islamic regime in Khartoum. On September 18, 2000, Coretta Scott King and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino presented Charles with the first-ever Boston Freedom Award for his abolitionist work. In 2001 and 2011, Charles flew several times, illegally, into Sudan on rescue missions that freed thousands of slaves. Charles testified before Congress on three separate occasions (in 1996, 1999, and 2000), and, on October 21, 2002, was invited to the White House for the signing of the Sudan Peace Act, where he spoke with President Bush. The AASG was instrumental in influencing the president to change U.S. policy on Sudan and enforcing a north-south peace treaty which ended the slave raids and created the world’s newest state: South Sudan.

The David Project — In the summer of 2002, in response to the sudden emergence of a new global anti-Semitism — principally focused against Israel — Charles co-founded the David Project to promote a fair and honest discussion of the Middle East conflict, and which, in 2017, was incorporated into Hillel International’s Israel Engagement and Education department. In its current iteration, it has educated thousands of pro-Israel students each year, preparing them for the rhetorical battles on the nation’s campuses.

Americans for Peace and Tolerance — In September of 2008, in view of the threat of Muslim Brotherhood elements’ rapid penetration of American society — and the failure of civic and political leaders to deal with it — Charles, along with Professor Dennis Hale and Sheikh Ahmed Mansour, founded Americans for Peace and Tolerance. APT works to expose and challenge leftist and terrorist-linked Islamic campaigns which threaten America and the Jews. APT campaigns have helped rid MIT and Northeastern University of terrorist imams, one demoted at NEU because of an APT video campaign.

Jewish Leadership Project — In the summer of 2022, after decades of Jewish leadership institutions consistently failing to recognize new threats to their communities for political reasons, Charles founded the Jewish Leadership Project, a group geared toward demanding that Jewish leaders carry out their responsibilities without partisan considerations. Expanding on a series of articles published in an issue of White Rose Magazine the previous year, in 2023, the JLP published a book, Betrayal: The Failure of American Jewish Leadership, consisting of 22 essays by local activists and Jewish luminaries, including Alan Dershowitz, Caroline Glick, Mort Klein, and Jonathan Tobin.

African Jewish Alliance — In the winter of 2024, Charles connected with representatives of persecuted Christian and un-Arabized Muslim African populations who wished to join forces with American Jews and Israelis against global jihad. The resulting African Jewish Alliance’s mission is to educate the public and government about the nature and extent of Islamic terrorism throughout Africa — religious repression, slavery, and genocide in particular — and also to restore the unnecessarily withered friendship between black and Jewish Americans.

Charles has been widely published, including in The New York Times, Boston Globe, Wall Street Journal, Jerusalem Post, JNS, and the Encyclopedia Britannica. He has appeared on local and national television and radio, including CNN, CBS, Fox News, NPR, and PBS. Along with Avi Goldwasser, he edited and published the book Betrayal: The Failure of American Jewish Leadership (Wicked Son, 2023).

Co-Founder / Filmmaker

Avi (Ralph) Goldwasser has been a filmmaker and Jewish activist for over 20 years. In 2002, he co-founded the David Project, an educational organization which supported Jewish students on college campuses. He also served on the Boston boards of the American Jewish Committee and the Boston Jewish Community Relationship Counsel. He is also in a leadership role with the Confronting Antisemitism Network (CAN).

Most recently, along with Dr. Charles Jacobs, he co-edited the book Betrayal: The Failure of the American Jewish Leadership (Wicked Son, 2023), a collection of essays by major Jewish luminaries including Alan Dershowitz, Caroline Glick, Mort Klein, Richard Landes, and Jonathan Tobin, as well as on-the-ground activists.

As a filmmaker, he produced Columbia Unbecoming (2004), a controversial documentary about the intimidation of Jewish students by Arab professors at Columbia University. The award-winning Forgotten Refugees (2005), a film about the plight of Jews expelled from Arab countries in the years after 1948. Losing Our Sons (2012), the dark story of two all-American boys—one who became a soldier, the other, indoctrinated by Muslim terrorist preachers in Nashville, murdered him in a roadside shooting in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 2009. The J Street Challenge: The Seductive Allure of Peace in Our Time (2014), an exposé of an advocacy group promoting itself as “pro-Israel, pro-peace” when it is neither. And Hate Spaces: The Politics of Intolerance on Campus (2016), a film illustrating how antisemitism is being made fashionable at universities across America.

Born in Poland to Holocaust survivors, Avi grew up in Israel and New York City. He has a BSEE from CCNY, and an MBA from NYU. Professionally, he worked as a CPA at Price Waterhouse Coopers. He has also been a financial executive in the hi-tech industry and CFO of several NYSE technology companies.

Co-Founder / Head of Technology & Strategy

Victor Muslin is a software engineering executive specializing in large scale data processing systems in the area of Internet advertising.

After retirement he helped launch Alums for Campus Fairness and for a number of years served as its Columbia University chapter’s lead. Victor is a founder of CU-Monitor and Documenting Jew Hatred on Campus that focused on documenting and bringing attention to antisemitism on university campuses, especially at Columbia University.

Victor holds a degree in Computer Science from Columbia University.

Chief Operating Officer

Lead Writer & Researcher

Head of Social Media

Dr. Max Abrahms is a tenured professor of political science and Jewish Studies at Northeastern University, where he specializes in international security, homeland security, U.S. foreign policy, the international relations of the Middle East, Israeli security, the global intifada movement, antisemitism, and especially terrorism and counter-terrorism. Abrahms is also a Senior Fellow in Counterterrorism at the American Foreign Policy Council. He is among the most cited scholars on terrorism and counterterrorism and regularly appears in the media to analyze a range of contemporary international security issues. He also consults for government agencies such as the CIA about the international terrorism landscape and serves as a “red team,” “white team,” and “blue team” counterterrorism expert for multinational corporations such as Amazon.

At Northeastern, Abrahms teaches courses on terrorism, counter-terrorism, national security, international security, and international relations. Previously, Abrahms taught courses on these topics at Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Dartmouth, and for NATO. He has held fellowships and other research affiliations with the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, the Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University, the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi, the political science department at Johns Hopkins University, the economics department at Bar Ilan University, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, American Jewish Committee, Middle East Forum, and the Belfer Center at Harvard University.

Abrahms graduated Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania in history and political science. He holds an M.Phil in international relations from Oxford with a dual concentration in the international relations of the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy, as well as a Ph.D. in political science from UCLA.

Bruce Abramson is an economist, attorney, and policy analyst, currently focused on higher education reform. Known for his pioneering techniques for statistical modeling in artificial intelligence, his work and analyses have broken new ground including in the world oil market, severe storm forecasting, battlefield intelligence, military logistics, Internet business models, anti-trust and intellectual property, strategies for engagement in the Middle East, and American political culture.

Bruce holds a Ph.D. in computer science from Columbia and a J.D. from Georgetown. He has worked as a University of Southern California professor and a Charles River Associates principal, and is currently a senior administrator at New College of Florida. He has launched and led two tech law consulting firms, a pro-Israel advocacy group, a non-profit think tank, and a strategic consulting firm. His clients have ranged from individuals and startups to Fortune 100 companies, government agencies, and international organizations.  He has contributed to the scholarly literature on computing, business, economics, law, and foreign policy, and written extensively about American politics and policy.

Simon Deng is a former slave from South Sudan, human rights activist, public speaker, and licensed lifeguard. Kidnapped and given as a gift to an Arab family at the age of nine during the First Sudanese Civil War, he lived as a chattel slave for two years. He hauled water from the Nile, served the family, and slept with the farm animals, enduring regular beatings and racial abuse. After he escaped and was reunited with his Shilluk people, he eventually made his way to Egypt, where he joined a professional swim team in Cairo. In 1989, he immigrated to the United States and settled in New York City. In 1993, he joined the leadership committee of the American Anti-Slavery Group, a human rights organization co-founded by Dr. Charles Jacobs to advocate for the end of slavery in Sudan and Mauritania. In 1995, he helped organize America’s first abolitionist conference since the Civil War at Columbia University. In 2006 and 2010, he embarked on a “Freedom Walk” between New York City and Washington, D.C., to demand South Sudanese independence from Arab Sudan. Other such walks include one in 2007 between Brussels and The Hauge. Since October 7, 2023, Simon has devoted his free time to repaying the kindness he received from the Jewish community in his early years as an immigrant and public speaker. Himself a victim of jihad slavery and Islamic terrorism, he made it his duty to tell the world that the same atrocities visited upon his African people had been inflicted upon Jews in Israel—from burning women and children alive to the enslavement of captives. Since early 2024, he has partnered with the African Jewish Alliance in staging one-man protests in Washington Square Park and Times Square on behalf of the Israeli hostages, and producing social media videos, such as with Jewish Instagram star Montana Tucker.

Avi (Ralph) Goldwasser has been a filmmaker and Jewish activist for over 20 years. In 2002, he co-founded the David Project, an educational organization which supported Jewish students on college campuses. He also served on the Boston boards of the American Jewish Committee and the Boston Jewish Community Relationship Counsel. He is also in a leadership role with the Confronting Antisemitism Network (CAN).

Most recently, along with Dr. Charles Jacobs, he co-edited the book Betrayal: The Failure of the American Jewish Leadership (Wicked Son, 2023), a collection of essays by major Jewish luminaries including Alan Dershowitz, Caroline Glick, Mort Klein, Richard Landes, and Jonathan Tobin, as well as on-the-ground activists.

As a filmmaker, he produced Columbia Unbecoming (2004), a controversial documentary about the intimidation of Jewish students by Arab professors at Columbia University. The award-winning Forgotten Refugees (2005), a film about the plight of Jews expelled from Arab countries in the years after 1948. Losing Our Sons (2012), the dark story of two all-American boys—one who became a soldier, the other, indoctrinated by Muslim terrorist preachers in Nashville, murdered him in a roadside shooting in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 2009. The J Street Challenge: The Seductive Allure of Peace in Our Time (2014), an exposé of an advocacy group promoting itself as “pro-Israel, pro-peace” when it is neither. And Hate Spaces: The Politics of Intolerance on Campus (2016), a film illustrating how antisemitism is being made fashionable at universities across America.

Born in Poland to Holocaust survivors, Avi grew up in Israel and New York City. He has a BSEE from CCNY, and an MBA from NYU. Professionally, he worked as a CPA at Price Waterhouse Coopers. He has also been a financial executive in the hi-tech industry and CFO of several NYSE technology companies.

M. Zuhdi Jasser, M.D. is the son of Syrian immigrants who fled Ba’athist oppression in 1966. He is a physician, a former U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander, and the President and founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD), a Phoenix-based counter-Islamism think tank established in 2003.

Dr. Jasser is also a co-founder of the Muslim Reform Movement (MRM) and served as Vice Chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), appointed by the U.S. Senate from 2012 to 2016.

He is an internationally recognized expert on Islamism (political Islam), widely published in the field, frequently featured in top-tier media outlets, and regularly testifies before the U.S. Congress on global Islamist threats and national security policy.

Dr. Jasser is the author of A Battle for the Soul of Islam: An American Muslim Patriot’s Fight to Save His Faith (Simon & Schuster). He also hosts two weekly programs: Reform This! on The Blaze Radio Network, and The Reform Report on TakeBackIslam.com.

Ordained from the Hebrew Union College’s Jewish Institute of Religion but describing himself as a “recovering Reform rabbi,” Rabbi Cary Kozberg has served as a pulpit rabbi, campus Hillel director, and, for most of his career, a board-certified healthcare chaplain. A published author and poet, he has presented workshops and seminars around the country, and is a nationally recognized resource on the spiritual, emotional, and psychological challenges that face older adults, their families, and caregivers.

In recent years, Rabbi Kozberg has focused on helping Jews to move away from the deleterious influence of political progressivism by educating them about values based on traditional Jewish texts. As a response to increasing violent antisemitism, he encourages Jews to embrace the principles of self-defense and teaches classes on the subject.

In 2021, Rabbi Kozberg started the Mattathias Project, an online discussion group that began with six individuals and now has a membership of over 120 from all over North America.  The Mattathias Project is devoted to promoting and defending Israel and helping the Jewish community to effectively respond to its internal and external enemies.

Jeffrey Lax is a professor of law at the City University of New York (CUNY) and has chaired the department of business at Kingsborough Community College (KCC) for the past 15 years. He is the co-founder and chair of the board for Students, Alumni, and Faculty for Equality on Campus (S.A.F.E. Campus), a 501(c)(3) charitable non-profit organization that advocates for Jews on college campuses.

Professor Lax is a seasoned former litigation attorney, having practiced in the areas of anti-trust and securities fraud, employment law, and complex commercial litigation. After seven years of lecturing at multiple campuses as an adjunct professor, Professor Lax transitioned to academia full-time at CUNY in 2004. Professor Lax is a legal scholar, focusing the first half of his career primarily publishing on women’s workplace rights. Over the past decade, Lax has expanded his expertise, writing and lecturing extensively on campus and faculty union antisemitism.

Professor Lax appears frequently in the media, both as a sought-after antisemitism expert and for general legal analysis. Professor Lax has provided analysis for a variety of major networks including Fox News, NBC, CBS, Newsmax, Court TV, Law and Crime, Scripps, and others. In addition to his expertise on antisemitism both as an attorney and as someone fighting it on the front lines in academia, Professor Lax has covered nearly every major trial over the last several years, including Depp/Heard, Gwyneth Paltrow, Derek Chauvin, Kyle Rittenhouse, Jussie Smollette, Darrell Brooks, and many others.

Dr. Naya Lekht is a scholar on contemporary antisemitism. She received her Ph.D. in Russian literature from UCLA, where she wrote her dissertation on Holocaust literature in the Soviet Union. In 2018, Naya was a Scholar-in-Residence at Oxford University through the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP).

A passionate educator and curriculum developer, Naya has worked with Jewish educational non-profits and Jewish day schools to empower and mentor Jewish teens, college students, and fellow educators. Naya is a published author and, in 2024, was named by the Jerusalem Post as one of that year’s top 25 Zionist “ViZionaries.” In addition to publishing in various news outlets and serving as a research fellow at ISGAP, Naya is a sought-after speaker and educator known for her expertise in the history of antisemitism, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the Soviet Union. She is the host of Don’t Know Much About, a show devoted to addressing the needs of the Jewish community today by exploring the history of Israel, the Middle East, and anti-Zionism.

Anthony M. Levey, M.A. is an honorably retired federal law enforcement leader with over 25 years of experience. He served as Regional Director for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Protective Service, overseeing security and law enforcement at federal facilities in New York, Northern New Jersey, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. In 2017, he was selected by DHS Secretary John F. Kelly as Deputy Federal Security Coordinator for the 72nd United Nations General Assembly, a National Special Security Event. Mr. Levey’s career includes roles as Special Agent in Charge, Supervisory Special Agent, Special Agent, Municipal Police Officer, School Liaison Officer, and Reserve Deputy Constable. He holds a Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership from Woodbury University and a Bachelor of Science in Political Science from Oregon State University. He also completed graduate-level studies in Terrorism and Homeland Security at Boston University and is a graduate of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s SES Candidate Development Program. Mr. Levey is a member of several professional organizations and has earned numerous commendations, including the DHS Secretary’s Silver Medal for Meritorious Service and multiple DEA awards. He holds law enforcement certifications from both California and Texas, including Master Peace Officer and Firearms Instructor.

Lori Lowenthal Marcus is the legal director of the The Deborah Project, a public interest law firm devoted exclusively to asserting and defending the civil rights of Jews facing discrimination in education. Lori and TDP have represented students, faculty, families, and academic associations by bringing antisemitism charges against institutions including public K–12 schools, colleges, and university campuses. Lori and TDP were the first in the country to legally challenge those seeking to covertly insert false and dangerously antisemitic instructional materials into public K–12 schools. Since then, TDP has brought many more such lawsuits across the country and is also representing dozens of students and faculty in internal disciplinary proceedings based on antisemitic claims and efforts to harm anyone who challenges those materials or other antisemitic efforts. TDP is also one of the first to bring a Title VII claim against a college for hounding a fully-tenured faculty member for seeking to assert truths about Israel and about the October 7 Hamas massacre. Lori has given many webinars to educate Jewish families on their legal rights and how to assert and protect them.

Lori is a widely published author whose writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Jerusalem Post, JNS, Jewish Journal, and dozens of others. Her views on antisemitism in education have also been sought by the New York Times, National Review, JNS, and other media outlets. Prior to joining TDP as its legal director, Marcus was a journalist covering Israel and the wider Middle East and antisemitism in the Diaspora. Still earlier, Marcus founded an international pro-Israel group, Z Street, and she, along with Jerome Marcus (president of TDP), successfully sued the Internal Revenue Service for viewpoint discrimination. After graduating from Harvard Law School, Marcus was a litigator at a major international law firm, where she represented the media in First Amendment cases. She also has two master’s degrees from Bryn Mawr College.

Masha Merkulova is the Founder and CEO of Club Z, the fastest-growing Jewish youth movement in the United States dedicated to cultivating articulate, confident Zionist leaders. Since founding Club Z in 2011, she has transformed it from a grassroots initiative into a national network with hundreds of teens and alumni influencing thousands of peers on campuses and in communities across the country. Under her leadership, Club Z has pioneered a multi-tiered education and leadership model that equips high school students to stand proudly as Jews, advocate for Israel, and respond effectively to antisemitism.

Known for challenging conventional approaches to Jewish education, Masha and Club Z have illuminated what traditional models often fail to deliver and demonstrated a more impactful path forward—one rooted in rigorous history, Jewish peoplehood, and identity. Her thought leadership has been published in Newsweek, the Jerusalem Post, and JNS, and she is frequently sought after for commentary on strengthening Jewish identity in the Diaspora. Through Club Z, Masha has built not just an organization but a movement that is reshaping the landscape of Jewish education and activism in America.

Brandy Shufutinsky serves as director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracy’s Program on Education and National Security. Prior to joining FDD, Brandy was director of education and community engagement at the North American Values Institute.

Brandy has been published in Newsweek, the Jewish Journal, Jerusalem Post, Sapir, White Rose Magazine, and JNS. She was a 2021 scholar-in-residence at the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy Oxford Summer Institute, where she worked to develop curriculum in critical antisemitism studies.

Brandy holds her doctorate in international and multi-cultural education from the University of San Francisco, her MSW from the University of Southern California, and her M.A. in international relations from the University of San Diego.