About this year's guest speaker

Dr. David Nesenoff is an American Rabbi, independent filmmaker, singer/songwriter of contemporary Jewish music, and blogger. His short films have been shown at various festivals including Sundance and the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. He has directed a full length movie and was a principal in a film production company.

 

In the 1990s, he counseled youths who had committed bias crimes. He came to national attention as an expert and counselor regarding bias crimes, and worked as a consultant to the U.S. Department Justice in the Denny's Restaurant racial discrimination case. Later, he served as an intervention consultant to Mel Gibson when Gibson was accused of anti-semitism.

 

He gained national attention in June 2010 when he posted to his website a video he had made of opinion columnist Helen Thomas making controversial statements about Israel. Over the next several days, the video went viral, Thomas resigned her job over this, and Nesenoff received what he initially said were over 25,000 pieces of hate mail, including several death threats.

 

Nesenoff himself has been interviewed and quoted in The New York Times, has written a column published in The Washington Post, and has appeared on Fox News and CNN's Reliable Sources program.