Board of Advisors

Mr. Natan Sharansky became Chair of ISGAP in July 2019. In 2003 Natan Sharansky famously developed a vital definition for the new antisemitism – the 3d test, to help us distinguish legitimate criticism of Israel from antisemitism. The first “D” is the test of demonization, the second – of double standards, the third – of delegitimization. This 3d principle was widely accepted by different organizations that fight antisemitism and was included in the international definition of antisemitism.

Charles Asher Small is the Founding Director and President of the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) and the Director of the ISGAP-Woolf Institute Fellowship Training Programme in Critical Contemporary Antisemitism Studies, Discrimination and Human Rights at the Woolf Institute, Cambridge, UK. He is also a Goldman Fellow at the Harold Hartog School of Government and Policy, and a Senior Research Fellow at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle East and African Studies, Tel Aviv University.

Dr. Ellen Cannon has been a Professor of Political Science and Jewish Studies at Northeastern Illinois University from 1978-present. She received a Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts in 1973 and a B.A. SUNY at Stony Brook in 1969. She is a graduate of the 2019 ISGAP-Oxford Summer Institute.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper is Associate Dean and Director of Global Social Action for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a leading global Jewish human rights organization. Rabbi Cooper has been a longtime activist for Jewish and human rights causes on five continents. In 1977, he came to Los Angeles to help Rabbi Marvin Hier found the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Together with Rabbi Hier, Rabbi Cooper regularly meets with world leaders, including Pope Francis, presidents, and foreign ministers to defend the rights of the Jewish people, combat terrorism and promote multi-faith relations worldwide.

Based in Hong Kong, Jesse Friedlander, CFA, is co-founder and chief investment officer of Des Voeux Partners, a multifamily office that manages intergenerational wealth. His areas of interest include macroeconomics, geopolitics, language and culture.

Matthew founded EntreVision with three partners and, as CFO, was instrumental in growing the company to over $20mm in sales and successfully selling the business to Nurun, a subsidiary of Quebecor. After a brief career as a high school teacher at Tanenbaum CHAT, Matthew returned to the technology world, purchasing Architronics in 2005. Matthew managed Architronics, maintaining its reputation as one of the top custom electronics integrators in North America and sold the business to Avante Security in 2018.

David Harris served as CEO of the American Jewish Committee (AJC) from 1990 to 2022. The organization was described by The New York Times as “the dean of American Jewish organizations,” and by French President Nicolas Sarkozy as “the most effective, influential, and respected American Jewish organization.”

Gregg Mashberg is a litigation partner at the international law firm, Proskauer Rose LLP. He is the co-head of the Securities Litigation Group and a former chair of the firm’s Litigation Department. Gregg has been deeply involved in Israel advocacy and combatting antisemitism. He is a member of the Anti-Defamation League’s Global Advisory Council and co-chair of ADL’s Government Relations Committee.

David Patterson holds the Hillel A. Feinberg Distinguished Chair in Holocaust Studies at the Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies, University of Texas at Dallas. He is a commissioner on the Texas Holocaust and Genocide Commission, a Senior Research Fellow and member of the Executive Board of Academic Advisors for the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitsm and Policy (ISGAP), and a member of the Executive Board of the Annual Scholars’ Conference on the Holocaust and the Churches. He has lectured at universities on six continents and throughout the United States.

Brig. Gen. (Res.) Sima Vaknin-Gil is engaged in several initiatives fighting against global antisemitism, one of which is the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), of which she is a member of the founding team. Sima served as the Director General of the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, of the State of Israel, during which she formulated the strategic campaign against the delegitimization and BDS of Israel. Sima had a distinguished career in the IDF as a former Intelligence Officer in the Israeli Air Force, and the Chief Censor of the State of Israel.

In June 1986, Malcolm Hoenlein was elected Executive Vice Chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the coordinating body on international and national concerns for 52 national Jewish organizations. He was succeeded by William Daroff on February 1, 2020, becoming Vice Chair. Previously, he served as the founding Executive Director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater New York, the central coordinating agency for Jewish organizations in the metropolitan New York area. Prior to that, he was the founding Executive Director of the Greater New York Conference on Soviet Jewry.