Scholar-in-Residence: Orly Erez-Likhovski

Executive Director of The Israel Religious Action Centre, Jerusalem

Shabbat Morning
Saturday, September 7
Torah Study, “Between Parashat Shoftim & Israel’s Declaration of Independence: IRAC’s Pursuit of Justice in Israeli Society”
9:00-10:00 am. To join us online, click here: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81097417710?pwd=d2xaQ0JIcncwM284TzVubDYwTzJwdz09
Password: 305143

Sermon, 10:30 am, “A Social Justice Lawyer’s Perspective on the Torah portion dedicated to Judges”
followed by Meet and Greet over congregational Kiddush-lunch.

“The Legal Struggle for Democracy, Equality & Jewish Pluralism: Reflections on a Post-October 7th Israel”
Monday, September 9, 7:00 pm
Join Orly Erez-Likhovski in conversation with Joan Garson & Dahlia Lithwick, Journalist on the US Supreme Court and Senior Editor of Slate Magazine.
This event is open to all lawyers, judges, law students, and professors of law. Congregants are welcome to bring their colleagues and friends.
Registration coming soon!

The Religious Action Center (IRAC) is the legal and advocacy arm of the Reform Movement in Israel.  See here (https://www.irac.org) for their mission and how they work to protect our values of democracy and pluralism, as enshrined in Israel’s Declaration of Independence.

Orly Erez-Likhovski, Adv. graduated from the Faculty of Law at Tel Aviv University. After clerking at the Israeli Supreme Court, she studied for a Master’s degree in Law at Columbia University, New York, focusing on human rights. Orly is a member of both the Israeli and the New York bar. Orly has been working as an attorney at the Israel Religious Action Center of the Reform Movement in Israel since 2004. She was the director of the legal department of IRAC between 2014 – 2021. In this capacity, she led the legal struggle against discrimination on the basis of religious affiliation, gender segregation in the public sphere, and racial incitement. Orly’s efforts led to significant legal achievements such as abolishing gender segregation on public buses, breaking the Orthodox monopoly regarding the funding of salaries of Rabbis, disqualifying racist candidates from running for the Knesset, and winning the rights of LGBTQ+ couples to adopt children in Israel. Since November, 2022, Orly is the Executive Director of the Israel Religious Action Center, which has been a key player in the pro-democracy movement throughout 2023. Orly is a member of the Reform congregation in Mevasseret Zion, where she lives with her family.

Dahlia Lithwick is a regular contributing analyst at MSNBC and senior editor at Slate Magazine. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Harper’s, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, The New Republic, and Commentary. She is host of Amicus, Slate’s award-winning biweekly podcast about the law and the U.S. Supreme Court. Her recent book, Lady Justice (September 2022), became an instant NY Times Bestseller, Dahlia is now part of the international team of legal experts seeking justice for the victims of sexual violence on October 7.

Joan Garson, an alumna of University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law, is Past President of Holy Blossom Temple and current Chair of the Holy Blossom Temple Foundation. Her leadership for the Reform Movement and Israel has been widely recognized. In 2023 Joan was named a Member of the Order of Canada for her “leadership and governance of numerous non-profit organizations within Jewish communities across Canada and around the world.”