Biography - Shai A. Franklin

 

Ron Sachs/ CNP

Shai A. Franklin is former Director of Governmental Relations for NCSJ. In this capacity, he coordinated NCSJ’s legislative agenda on Capitol Hill and acted as liaison to the Executive Branch and the diplomatic community. He also oversaw the organization’s public information programs and strategy. As a member of NCSJ's staff, he participated in planning and organizing the April 2002 Israel Solidarity Rally in Washington, DC, and coordinated follow-up activities with the U.S. Congress.

Prior to joining the NCSJ staff, Shai was the Managing Editor of Middle East Insight Magazine in Washington, DC. He has previously served as an international affairs consultant; as a Fellow at both the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and, with the late Ambassador Morris B. Abram, United Nations Watch in Geneva; and as a community professional with the Anti-Defamation League in Connecticut. He has managed humanitarian projects in Russia and India as Ralph I. Goldman Fellow of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), and conducted research in Israel with the late Daniel J. Elazar at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.  Shai has testified before the U.S. Helsinki Commission on strategies to combat European anti-Semitism, and has represented NCSJ in various fora of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE): the 2002 OSCE Parliamentary Assembly in Berlin; the historic OSCE conferences on anti-Semitism in Vienna (2003) and Berlin (2004); and the annual OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting in Warsaw. On behalf of NCSJ, he attends the Democratic and Republican nominating conventions every four years. He has participated in the Nahum Goldmann Fellowship of the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, in Sweden, and in March 2003 he joined other former JDC Ralph Goldman Fellows on a study mission to Argentina.  Shai has held leadership positions within the Jewish community, serving on the Israel Task Force of the Jewish Federation of Rhode Island's Community Relations Council, and as Co-Chair of the Gelfand Memorial Institute of Adult Education at Kesher Israel Congregation in Washington, DC. He has chaired the National Institute for Jewish Leadership at the Washington DC Jewish Community Center (DCJCC). Shai earned a B.A. in political science (summa cum laude) from Temple University in Philadelphia - where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa - and an M.A. in Middle East studies and international economics from the Johns Hopkins University’s Nitze School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC, where was selected for the U.S. Government's Presidential Management Intern Program. A former Wexner Foundation Graduate Fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), he also attended the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in Providence and the University of Haifa in Israel. He is a graduate of Philadelphia's Akiba Hebrew Academy. Shai has published numerous articles on Jewish affairs, foreign policy, and Middle Eastern politics. He has traveled widely in Eastern and Western Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and South Asia, as well as seven of the 15 Soviet successor states, meeting often with high-ranking government officials and with Jewish and other religious leaders. In addition to English, he speaks Arabic, French, and Hebrew. Read June 2004 CSCE testimony Read Oct. 2003 OSCE intervention Read Oct. 2003 Warsaw Roundtable Read July 1999 Caucasus Diary

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