meet our founder
Adam Louis-Klein is the founder of the Movement Against Antizionism, a writer, anthropologist, and philosopher whose life’s work bridges scholarship and moral conviction. He holds a BA in Philosophy from Yale University and is currently completing his PhD in Anthropology at McGill University. His research draws on both fieldwork and personal experience to explore Jewish peoplehood and the symbolic structures of anti-Jewish hate.
Adam’s path has been shaped by both rigorous academic inquiry and deeply personal experience. After years of fieldwork with the indigenous Desana people of the Amazon, he returned to a changing world in which Jewish identity and continuity were increasingly recast as threats. When expressing solidarity with the Jewish people led to ostracism from colleagues and friends, Adam refused to conform. Instead, he committed himself to articulating and defending the legitimacy of Jewish peoplehood in an age of rising hostility, where open calls for the erasure of Jews and Israel have returned with alarming force.
A regular contributor to The Times of Israel, Adam has also published in The Free Press and Tablet, where he writes with clarity and conviction about anti-Jewish libel, the antizionist hate movement, and the universal right of peoples to exist, endure, and speak in their own voice. He co-directs Oscillations: Non-Standard Experiments in Anthropology, the Social Sciences, and Cosmology, and is a Postgraduate Fellow at the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism.
Through his scholarship and his story, Adam embodies what this movement stands for: courage in the face of exclusion, faith in the enduring value of Jewish existence, and the conviction that the idea of justice must never be co-opted to legitimize hate. His vision is both Jewish and universal: that every people deserves the dignity of belonging and the freedom to thrive.
partners
Rona Kaufman
Rona is a lawyer, scholar, and advocate whose work sits at the intersection of law, ethics, and Jewish identity. A graduate of Fordham University School of Law, she began her career practicing in New York before transitioning into academia, where she teaches courses in constitutional law, criminal law, feminist jurisprudence, and legal theory. Her scholarship, published in respected law reviews and cited by advocates and policymakers, explores how the law can both reinforce and dismantle inequality, with a particular focus on gender justice, consent, and family law. In recognition of her contributions, she has served on national committees devoted to legal reform and was honored in 2024 by the American Association of Law Schools for her innovative teaching and mentorship.
Rooted in her Jewish identity, Rona brings her legal expertise to issues affecting the Jewish community, creating educational programming on anti-Jewish hate, Jewish law, and the role of Jewish values in contemporary justice debates. She has partnered with synagogues, Jewish nonprofits, and interfaith organizations to strengthen Jewish advocacy and civic engagement, and she is a frequent speaker at conferences and community forums. Currently serving as an Associate Professor of Law, Rona continues to balance her roles as teacher, researcher, and Jewish leader, committed to empowering the next generation to view the law not only as a tool for justice but also as a means of fostering Jewish resilience and pride.
Dr. Naya Lekht
Naya is a scholar on the history of anti-Jewish movements. Born in the former Soviet Union, she emigrated with her family and grew up strongly aware that her parents were survivors of Soviet antizionism. Their experiences instilled in her both a personal understanding of how Jew-hatred mutates and a lifelong commitment to educating about it. She earned her PhD in Russian Literature from UCLA, writing her dissertation on Holocaust literature in the Soviet Union, and later served as a Scholar-in-Residence at Oxford through the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy. Her research on the Holocaust in the Soviet Union has directly informed her ability to create educational content on Soviet antizionism, connecting past patterns of repression to contemporary manifestations of anti-Jewish hatred. Naya has partnered with Jewish non-profits, Jewish day schools, and synagogues to develop curricula on antizionism, the Holocaust, and the Arab-Israeli conflict.
In 2024, she was recognized by the Jerusalem Post and JNF as one of the “Top Ten Zionist Visionaries,” honored for her dedication to fostering Jewish pride through education. In addition to teaching at both the collegiate and high school levels on the history of anti-Jewish hate movements, Naya serves as Education Editor at White Rose Magazine and as a Research Fellow at ISGAP. She is a regular contributor to the Jewish Journal and the Jerusalem Post. Naya hosts the podcast Don’t Know Much About, a show devoted to engaging the Jewish community by bridging contemporary news and history.
Natasha Pein
Natasha is an educator, speaker, and advocate whose life’s work is devoted to unmasking hate in all its forms. Born in the former Soviet Union, she grew up under the shadow of state-sponsored antizionist oppression, an experience that deeply shaped her commitment to truth, resilience, and education. In the aftermath of October 7, 2023, she undertook comprehensive research on the history of anti-Jewish hatred, tracing its evolution from medieval blood libels to Soviet propaganda and modern disinformation campaigns. Her findings reveal a chilling continuity: while the language and faces may change, the libels remain the same, serving as a recurring tool of dehumanization and delegitimization across centuries.
As the founder of Pinnacle Integrity in Education for All (PIE4ALL.org), Natasha leads a pioneering initiative that confronts hate in K–12, higher education, and professional institutions. Through curricula, advocacy, and training, PIE4ALL equips students, educators, and professionals with the skills to recognize and resist prejudice while promoting a culture of respect, fairness, and inclusivity. Natasha’s mission is to safeguard the integrity of education by ensuring all communities are represented accurately and fairly, fostering spaces where diversity strengthens unity rather than division. She continues to serve as a powerful voice for truth, committed to building a society grounded in justice, dignity, and shared humanity.
andrew pessin
Andrew is a philosopher, educator, and author whose life’s work is dedicated to exposing the intellectual and moral roots of antisemitism and antizionism. A Professor of Philosophy at Connecticut College and former Campus Bureau Editor for The Algemeiner, he unites scholarly rigor with public advocacy to confront how hatred disguises itself as virtue in modern culture. His two-volume work Israel Breathes, World Condemns offers the first comprehensive chronicle of the decades-long transformation that led many campuses to not merely tolerate but celebrate the October 7, 2023, Hamas massacre. Earlier books—Refuting the Lies Told About Israel, Poisoning the Wells: Antisemitism in America, and Anti-Zionism on Campus—trace the evolution of anti-Jewish ideas across institutions, warning how prejudice masquerading as justice corrodes education, discourse, and moral clarity.
His books and articles combine journalistic documentation of numerous incidents along with the theoretical analysis of the philosopher, addressing such central questions as whether antizionism is antisemitism (the short answer is yes) and how antisemitism can seep even into one’s basic cognitive processes. He has also published four novels, including Nevergreen (2021), an academic satire about campus cancel culture and its harmful effects on the Jews which, unfortunately as well, proved prophetic when campuses exploded against Israel and the Jews after the October 7 massacre. His most recent novel, Bright College Years (2024), is about how colleges used to be before they all went crazy. He enjoyed some moments of fame portraying “The Genius” on the former Late Show with David Letterman. For more information about him and his work, visit www.andrewpessin.com.
Dr. Sheree Trotter
Sheree is Māori of the Te Arawa Iwi (tribe). She earned her PhD in history from the University of Auckland and is the author of, Zionism at the Ends of the Earth: Humanitarianism and Identity. She is the founder and director of the Indigenous Embassy Jerusalem. In October 2024 she convened the inaugural IEJ Academic Symposium at Bible Lands Museum, Jerusalem. She is a Fellow of London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and completed an ISGAP scholars-in-residence course at University of Oxford in 2023. In 2012 she co-founded the Holocaust and Antisemitism Foundation for whom she has interviewed seventy Holocaust survivors. Sheree was listed by Algemeiner in their J100, “Top 100 People Positively Influencing Jewish Life, 2024.”