Dahlia Shaham

Dahlia Shaham was born and raised in the city of Haifa, and lives there today with her family. She holds an LLB in Law and Latin American studies from the Hebrew University (2003), an M.A. of Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University (2009). Before embarking on her Rabbinic path, Dahlia worked in policy research and advocacy NGOs working to promote sustainability and peace in Israel and the Middle East.

Dahlia received her Rabbinic Ordination from the Hebrew Union College (2019). Her rabbinate is guided by passion for peace and justice, faith in the healing power of prayer and music, and devotion to her homeland those who dwell in it.

As a rabbi, Dahlia leads holiday and life event services and teaches in “Or Hadash” congregation in Haifa and “Kedem” congregation in Melbourne. She brings her rabbinate to diverse and creative settings including publicist writing, women circles, playback theater, nature Minyans, music and spoken word performance and writing.

Dahlia volunteers on the executive board of Rabbis for Human Rights. With her life partner, Aran, she directs Hamam al Pasha – a historic building in downtown Haifa, which offers a womb-like space for culinary, cultural and spiritual celebrations. She enjoys communing with nature, dance, music and exploring the world together with Aran and their son Nouri. 


I first met Dahlia when she applied as my teaching assistant for EPIIC’s Global Cities colloquial/symposium year. What was noteworthy about Dahlia's service in this role was how thoroughly she took her responsibilities. Her intelligence, enthusiasm, and intellectual curiosity were self-evident, but most importantly was her human and emotional intelligence and caring extension to our students. 

Dahlia’s MA thesis was on the economic and political relationship between Israel and the Gulf states. Her brilliance and personality were acknowledged by her peers at the Fletcher Graduate School when she was chosen to give the commencement day address on an especially meaningful anniversary of the school.

She was important to our Institute's NIMEP, exploring Israel with Amit Paz and Hannah Flamm during the bloody Cast Lead operation in December 2008.  As she expressed it: "I can't quite find the words for it, but it was painfully inspiring."

While we had many conversations about Israeli politics, both internal and external, what I enjoyed most about Dahlia was her sensitivity and total openness to human experience. While I knew subsequently that she worked for REUT on sensitive political issues, it became no surprise to me to learn of the pastoral and spiritual route she has taken. 

I had the pleasure of meeting her husband, delightful Aran, with whom I jousted frequently since he was a chef and I had no such skills, and he was an avowed Lakers fan, and I was a Celtics fan. They were my first guests at my Truro home. It was fun to hear from Dahlia that she recalled what she describes as a "fascinating lesson you gave Aran and me about baseball down in front of the Green Monster. I realized then that the thrill of the game was about waiting for a breakthrough against the odds - much like politics!”

The serendipity of our recent renewal took place with this picture: it turns out that Dahlia will officiate at the bar mitzvah of Ido, the delightful youngest son of my close friends Shai and Yael Schubert. (pictured below)

Global Maritime Accord Academy: Part 2

See the youtube link here

The Global Maritime Accord (GMA) is the first integrated and coordinated approach towards the harmonized administration and governance of the oceans, especially the Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction. The GMA Academy (GMAA) is the learning, teaching, research and exchange platform for drafting the GMA.

GMA and GMAA are focused on the health of oceans in a globally shared effort. They aim to strengthen and support the implementation of the Intergovernmental Conference on legally binding instruments under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the safeguarding of marine biological diversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction.

Members of the Accord development effort include oceanographers, lawyers, environmentalists, diplomats and military security experts, from Australia, Canada, Chile, Denmark, Germany, India, Israel, Netherlands, New Zealand, Kenya, Sri Lanka, United Kingdom and United States.

UN Watch Brings Wife of Jailed Russian Dissident to Address United Nations

UN Watch Brings Wife of Jailed Russian Dissident to Address United Nations

GENEVA, September 22 — UN Watch today brought the wife of imprisoned Russian opposition leader Vladimir Kara-Murza, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison for criticizing Putin’s war on Ukraine, to address the United Nations.

"Such a powerful appeal for freedom in Russia," tweeted British Ambassador Simon Manley, who heard the speech in the council chamber.

Russia is currently running for a seat on the 47-nation council, in elections that will be held by the UN General Assembly on October 10th.

Last week, together with two other human rights groups, UN Watch published amajor report urging countries to oppose the candidacies of Russia, China and Cuba. 

Following is the text of Evgenia Kara Murza's UN address today:

“I am a Russian citizen and Advocacy Director at the Free Russia Foundation, and I am honoured to address the United Nations on behalf of UN Watch.

Recently, my husband Vladimir Kara-Murza, a great Russian patriot, was sent to a prison camp in Siberia for 25 years for stating the fact: the Russian state is leading a criminal war of aggression against Ukraine and is using repression against tens of thousands of Russian citizens to prevent them from exercising their right to free speech guaranteed by the Russian Constitution.

I have come here to ask the Russian government: Would a strong leader attack a peaceful neighbor? Would a strong leader need to close down all independent media and persecute all organizations involved in the defense of human rights?

Would a strong leader subject his own citizens to mind-boggling propaganda, arbitrary detentions, torture, punitive psychiatry, and decades-long prison terms for questioning state policies? Would hundreds of thousands of people flee a country led by a strong leader who enjoys the support of his population?

No. Vladimir Putin is no leader. He is wanted for arrest by the International Criminal Court, as a criminal.

Putin’s Russia definitely has no place on the United Nations Human Rights Council.

And I call on the international community to not let him and his government get away—yet again—with the crimes they are committing against both the Ukrainian and the Russian peoples.

For as long as Putin’s government is allowed to stay in the Kremlin, the war will go on. Vladimir Putin in not a leader but a bully, and if we want peace, this bully needs to be stopped.”

click for video

UN Watch and Russian Human Rights

Evgenia Kara-Murza spoke today on behalf of UN Watch, a leading voice at the United Nations for human rights in Russia.

Prior to his imprisonment, UN Watch worked closely with Vladimir Kara-Murza, one of the most well-known Russian dissidents, and hosted him several times at the UN.

In November, Evgenia Kara-Murza received UN Watch’s 2022 Morris Abram Human Rights Award on behalf of her husband. 

Hear Their Voices - Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights

On September 23, 2001, Eritrean authorities rounded up ten independent journalists as part of a brutal crackdown on free speech and human rights.

Twenty two years later, Dawit Isaak, Seyoum Tsehaye, Amanuel Asrat, Dawit Habtemichael, and their colleagues are still in jail. 

To honour this solemn anniversary, we’re launching Hear Their Voices - a global advocacy campaign on behalf of these men, the longest detained journalists in the world.

They have been held incommunicado for 22 years without charge or trial, and without access to family, consular assistance, or the right to legal counsel.  

Four of the journalists’ families have come together to ask the Eritrean government and the international community to take action on behalf of their loved ones. 

For 22 years, their hearts have been aching.

At a minimum, they want to hear their voices again.

Standing alongside these families and a global coalition of advocates, we are demanding that the Eritrean regime prove that these journalists are still alive.

We want to #HearTheirVoices.

Our call  is amplified by Dr. Mohamed Babiker, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of Human Rights in Eritrea, whose office recently issued this scathing report on the human rights situation in the country, noting that its widespread and systematic practice of enforced disappearance constitutes a crime against humanity.

“Let their families, and let all Eritreans, hear their voices. After 8,000 days of incommunicado detention, I urge the Eritrean government to provide information about the whereabouts of Dawit Isaak and his colleagues.”
- Dr. Mohamed Babiker, UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Eritrea

Spread the word.

*Click here to share your own message of support for Eritrea’s missing journalists, using the hashtag #HearTheirVoices. 

“If the international community cannot hold Mr. Afwerki’s regime to account, how can we secure justice and accountability in a rules-based international order in the face of even bigger challenges? As long as Mr. Isaak is detained, the fundamental rights and freedoms that form the bedrock of democracy will only continue to erode.”

- Irwin Cotler (International Chair) and Judith Abitan (Executive Director) in this powerfully worded opinion piece focused on the case of journalist Dawit Isaak, a dual Eritrean-Swedish citizen

Solomiya Ivakhiv

Ukrainian born Solomiya Ivakhiv is an accomplished concert violinist, chamber musician, collaborator, educator, and champion of new music. Concertizing internationally, her wide range of repertoire includes the premiere of numerous new works for violin.

Her solo album, Ukraine: Journey to Freedom – A Century of Classical Music for Violin and Piano, was featured in the Top 5 New Classical Releases on the iTunes billboard.

Dr. Ivakhiv showcases the poetic and rhapsodic style of Ukrainian, American, British, and French composers on her soon-to-be-released album Poems and Rhapsodies. The album includes American Rhapsody, a lyrical romance for violin and orchestra portraying the beauty of the American landscape written by Grammy winning-composer and fellow UConn professor Kenneth Fuchs.

solomiyaivakhiv.com

PERFORMANCES

Dr. Ivakhiv has performed solo and chamber music at Carnegie Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, CBC Glenn Gould Studio, Curtis Institute Field Concert Hall, Italian Academy in New York City, Pickman Hall in Cambridge (MA), San Jose Chamber Music Society, Old First Concerts in San Francisco, Astoria Music Festival (Portland), Tchaikovsky Hall in Kyiv, Concertgebouw Mirror Hall, and at UConn’s Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts.

She has made solo appearances with the Istanbul State Symphony, Charleston Symphony, Henderson Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, Lviv Philharmonic Orchestra, the Hunan Symphony Orchestra in China, the AACC, and the Bach Festival Orchestra.


MASTER CLASSES AND COLLABORATIONS

A dedicated educator, Dr. Ivakhiv has conducted master classes and coached chamber music at Yale, Columbia, Penn State, the University of Hartford’s Hartt School of Music, Boston Conservatory, Curtis SummerFest, the University of Maryland, Bard College Prep, SUNY – Fredonia, Oberlin, and Guangzhou and Hunan Conservatories (China). She regularly collaborates with high schools in outreach programs throughout the United States and is a member of the Connecticut Chapter  of the American String Teachers Association.

Dr. Ivakhiv is Artistic Director of the Ukrainian Institute’s Music at the Institute (MATI) Concert Series in New York City, a position she has held since 2010. She collaborates with other musicians regularly on the series.

AWARDS

2019 Alumni Excellence Award from the Curtis Institute of Music

Silver Medal, Global Music Awards, for Ukraine: Journey of Freedom – A Century of Classical Music for Violin and Piano (2016)

University of Connecticut School of Fine Arts New Scholar Award 2016

Fritz Kreisler Gold Medal from the Curtis Institute of Music (2003)

Second Prize, Sergei Prokofiev Competition (2000)

Honorable and Mrs. Peter H.B. Frelinghuysen Fellowship (2001 Tanglewood Music Center)

Honored (Merited) Artist of Ukraine 2021

Solomiya Ivakhiv and the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy

It has been my privilege and honor to have met and hosted wonderful Solomiya, whose personal warmth and verve are matched by the passion and sensitivity of her musical performance. I was introduced to her by a friend, Julie Skolnik, the founding director Mistral Music, on whose board Iris and I have served. 

I was fortunate to grow up with a cultured father, who introduced me to violin performances of Heifetz, Oistrakh, and Piatigorsky. Listening to Solomiya’s interpretative artistry and beginning a friendship is wonderful. 

Solomiya and Remi

She loves Remi, and over wine, we learned that we both love the concept of serendipity. When I returned home after an absence, Solomiya had positioned a vase of sunflowers in our kitchen.  I realized we both treasure the presence of the vibrant flower that Ukrainians view as a symbol of peace and resilience.  I learned that the national flower of Ukraine also represents renewal and hope, They have planted around the land of Chernobyl nuclear disaster. and help to extract toxins from the devastated soil.

She has already assumed her mentor's role, reaching out to invite Olli as her guest to her concerts, and I am dreaming and conspiring in my mind to create a future Carnegie Hall, Music for Life International benefit for Ukrainian refugees. I sit on their Board as their strategic Adviser.

Honouring the Trail-Blazing Work of Irwin Cotler

An excerpt from the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights:

“We are delighted that Irwin Cotler, our Founder and International Chair, was just awarded the Israeli Presidential Medal of Honor, one of the country’s highest civilian awards. It recognizes those who “have made an outstanding contribution to the State of Israel or to humanity.” 

The award honours Irwin’s “unique contribution to the Jewish people” - a contribution celebrated by this short, moving video.

“[Irwin Cotler] is a world-renowned human rights advocate who has made a special contribution in the field of the struggle for human rights, and in the fight against antisemitism, hate crimes, and racism in general.” - Office of President Isaac Herzog

We invite you to congratulate Irwin for this acknowledgement of his decades-long career in tireless defence of human rights, including by combating antisemitism and other forms of hate.

Through your support, we can continue our critical work and build upon the inspirational legacy of our founder. Any contribution goes a long way.

On the Meaning of this Award

"Over the past few years, I have had the immense privilege of working closely with Professor Cotler, including on issues relating to Israel, antisemitism, and the global Jewish community. Over the course of those short years alone - in his role as both International Chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights and Canada's Special Envoy for Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combating Antisemitism - Professor Cotler's tireless contributions have been more than deserving of the Presidential Medal.

And yet, the past few years are merely a glimpse - a microcosm - of Prof. Cotler's lifetime of work on behalf of Israel and the Jewish people. He has been a lifelong advocate for peace and human rights in Israel and the surrounding region. He played a role in the peace process between Egypt and Israel, was deeply involved in organizing humanitarian rescue efforts for both Soviet and Ethiopian Jewry, and has served as a trusted advisor and mentor to Israeli and Jewish leaders across decades and disciplines.

Professor Cotler represents the very best of what Israel and the Jewish people have to offer. He represents an aspirational Israel - one that is Jewish and democratic, prosperous and peaceful. At this juncture, his leadership is more valuable than ever, and the Presidential Medal of Honour is recognition of that."

- Noah Lew, Special Advisor to Irwin Cotler

Ben Harburg

Ben is a Managing Partner at MSA Capital, a global investment firm with over $2 billion in assets under management. Mr Harburg also leads MSA Novo, the emerging markets-focused franchise of MSA. Ben has significant investment and operations experience in Greater China, Southeast Asia, South Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa.  

 He sits on Boards of Directors of various private and public companies and foundations such as the National Committee on US China Relations and the Asian Cultural Council, and the Carnegie Endowment’s Tsinghua Center. 

 He was a Neubauer Scholar at Tufts University (where he studied International Relations), a Fulbright Scholar at Ruhr-Universität Bochum (where he was based in the Department of Islamic Sciences and Oriental Philology).

 His passion is soccer and he is a co-owner of Cádiz Club de Fútbol, a team playing in Spain’s First Division (La Liga). 

Ben’s recent contribution to Foreign Policy titled “America Can’t Stop China’s Rise. And it should stop trying”, in collaboration with Tony Chan and Kishore Mahbubani can be found HERE.

Ben was an extraordinarily accomplished, dynamic student at the Institute.  

I first met him as a high school senior who had been accepted to Tufts University, among many other quality schools. I was an advisor of the Neubauer Scholars Program, incentivizing promising young students to come to Tufts judged to have the capacity for “transforming intellectual leadership.” The scholars were to be offered $10,000 over four years to enact individualized plans of academic study and available to underwrite domestic and international research internships.  Ben was accompanied by his father, Fred Harburg, and I was assigned to conduct their University tour. I suddenly felt like a football coach, trying to recruit a star athlete. I was successful, and it began what has now been decades of a warm, unique relationship. 

In his first year, Ben enrolled in my Institute’s EPIIC program's 2002-2003 colloquium on Sovereignty and Intervention. EPIIC students are encouraged to pursue in-depth research projects, and Ben joined with two other colloquium students in creating The Sovereignty Exchange. Their objective was to gain a “clearer understanding of what sovereignty means in an interdependent and rapidly evolving international system.” Ben traveled to an annual meeting of ex-presidents and former prime ministers in Madrid, where they were able to discuss these issues with luminaries such as President Mary Robinson of Ireland and President Cesar Gaviria of Colombia. Other notable interviewees for the project included former UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Nicaraguan President Enrique Bolanos and MIT professor Noam Chompsky. 

Presenting his work, he successfully applied for a position with the Hague Office of the Prosecutor on the Slobodan Milosevic case at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. I vividly remember the phone call I got from a very surprised and embarrassed official at The Hague. Ben had accurately described himself as a first-year student. They assumed that meant the first year of law school, their prerequisite for the position. It took some convincing to allow Ben the chance to prove himself. He ultimately received a very high evaluation. 

It was the beginning of a very interesting array of challenging projects that Ben would undertake during his undergraduate era - serving as the counter-terrorism portfolio manager for the U.S. Mission to NATO in Brussels, where he collaborated with terrorism experts from Europe and North Africa to analyze global trends and develop counterterrorism policy objectives for the alliance; and working on security sector reform in the Balkans while working on the Kosovo Desk at the Office of South Central European Affairs at the U.S. State Department.  

His interest in conflict and terrorism developed while he was working for the Basque conflict resolution NGO, Elkarri, in the summer of 2003 in San Sebastian and as a student research associate for the International Security Program at Harvard’s Kennedy School’s Belfer Center, concentrating on North Korean and Iranian nuclear policy.  I also introduced him to a new program I helped to advise, Humanity in Action, with Judy Goldstein, and he became one of their Fellows in 2005 and previously served on their Board of Advisers.  

Ben was not all-mind. He captained the Tufts Varsity Crew team, and he introduced me to the erg, and I positioned a Concept 2 machine in my office.  Ben graduated from Tufts University magna cum laude in 2006 with a BA in International Relations. He held the Neubauer scholarship to extremely high standards in its first year, enabling me to hold successive classes to the same bar. Upon graduation, he was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to Germany, where he studied the radicalization of Muslim youth in Germany and homegrown terrorism. 

Ben has a clear sense of accountability. He became a critical supporter and underwriter of future generations of Institute students, providing advice and funds for their research travel. He was at times a funder in moments in extremis, when unusual demands were made on our finances. There was one glaring unexpected moment when a new administration stopped supporting the Bacow administration's enlightened policy, where graduating seniors were supported for their culminating post-graduation summer senior research trips, many of which were derived from their senior honors theses.   

One of my most fulfilling aspirations is being able to mentor the children of my alumni, usually university or high school students, in this case, it will be his and Jenny's child, Tiger, a precocious 12-year-old!  

Graziella Reis-Trani

Graziella Reis-Trani is the global alumni leader, ICEO at LHH and an executive and leadership development coach at GRT Coaching. 

As a coach, she empowers leaders to uncover unconscious patterns in their beliefs, behaviors and language to increase their impact by establishing new ways of being that bring self-awareness, emotional intelligence, confidence and better relationships.

Graziella has spent over 15 years working as a corporate alumni leader in three top global law firms before joining LHH to serve as the global alumni leader for the International Center for Executive Options. During this time, she has coached associates and alumni around professional development and career transition, developed multi-year alumni strategies, identified and executed alumni focused activities that supported business development and recruiting objectives. Graziella also helped design and launch an award-winning internal Coaching Office while serving as a Coaching Office Steering Committee member, mentor and coach.

Prior to that, Graziella spent a few years working at the United Nations, at not-for-profits (the Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO), the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) and the US Committee for UNDP), UN agency (UNDP) and the UN Secretariat (DPA, DPI).

Graziella holds an M.A. in International Peace and Conflict Resolution from American University’s School of International Service, a B.A. in International Relations from Tufts University and a certificate in Women’s Entrepreneurship from Cornell University. Graziella completed her coaching certification at the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching (iPEC) and currently holds an Associate Certified Coach (ACC) credential from the International Coaching Federation.  

While at Tufts, Graziella became involved with the Institute for Global Leadership her freshman year, when she worked for the IGL during their annual symposium. She continued her involvement by organizing an event with QUNO ahead of the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racial Intolerance. Graziella participated in the 2002-2003 (Global Inequities) EPIIC class, which explored the relationship between globalization and inequality. Inspired by that class and her experience at the UN, Graziella helped organize an IGL delegation to the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Graziella was born in Brazil and raised in NYC, having also lived in Boston and Washington, DC. This international upbringing has given her a great appreciation for exploring different countries and cultures any chance she gets. She loves music (especially live!), from classic rock and 90s pop to opera and classical and is always up for going to show or concert.

I met Graziella when she was a first-year Tufts student and work-study student at the Institute for Global Leadership. 

 Impressed by her discriminating demeanor, intellectual curiosity, and her organizational skills, always problem-solving with a ready smile, I hoped to attract her to EPIIC. 

Several years later, she found its topic relevant to her concerns and shone brightly as an important member of the Global Inequities colloquium and symposium. At my Institute, dedicated to nurturing leadership, it was immediately clear she was a confident and sensitive leader. 

I recognized Graziella's deep concern for environmental justice, water rights, and preserving nature, prioritizing sustainability. She conducted valuable independent research on the relationship of water and conflict. She could at once be thoroughly passionate yet always thoughtfully determined in an utterly steady and calm manner. 

She was a frequent and prized volunteer. As Vice President of the International Club, she was responsible for setting up university-wide culture shows and was extolled as one of the finest host advisors for Tufts International Orientation. 

Graziella's deep capacity, actually her strong instinct, is to help nurture and care about people, and she has dedicated herself to furthering principled policy at numerous NGOs.  

I knew of her love for music and saw her intermittently, especially at our IGL Carnegie Hall benefit concerts by Music for Life International, supporting Syrian refugees, or for the UN agency concerned with preventing gender-based violence and protecting women.  

A fiercely independent and powerful advocate for women's empowerment, she possesses a deep sense of justice and commitment to equality and equity. 

Graziella is an impressive, thoughtful, and compassionate person. A highly sought-after corporate alumni leader, executive coach and mentor, she is the quintessential Convisero member, fusing knowledge, acumen, human and emotional intelligence skills, and integrity in a superbly professional manner.

Thom Kidrin

I’ve known Thom Kidrin for decades. He is one of the most innovative, imaginative, entrepreneurial and over the horizon thinkers that I know. He is also one of the more fun people to be around. Chairman and CEO of Real Brands Inc. and President and CEO of World’s Inc will give you some insight on how he is avant garde. 

But most importantly in my life, Thom was a lifelong friend and advocate of “Hurricane” Rubin Carter who spent 19 years in prison for twice being wrongfully convicted of a triple murder in a bar in Paterson, New Jersey. And a forceful advocate for the remarkable John Artis, one of the most decent, courageous and honest people I have ever met. 

Thom Kidrin, Rubin Carter, and my wife Iris Adler

Thom was an indomitable supporter of Rubin and John during their time in prison and after, and has continued to honor their legacy since Rubin passed from prostate cancer in 2014 and John died in 2021. Thom managed to get the attention of Muhammed Ali, Jimmy Carter, and the NAACP in order to support freeing Rubin and John. While many gave up support after Rubin was convicted for the second time of the same crime, thinking that the court could not be wrong twice, Thom stuck with him. 

Rubin, knowing that he was not meant to be there, refused services from the prison, including eating the food being served. Thom would take a train once a month from Manhattan to Trenton to deliver 25 lbs canned food to Rubin in prison, the maximum amount allowed. If the box of food exceeded 25 lbs, the guard would take out the heaviest cans, remarking that Rubin will “lose some weight this month.” 

Thom also brought Rubin books, at first law books that Rubin would read to try to get himself out. But later, Thom convinced Rubin that he needed to free his mind because he was not going to be able to free himself through reading books on law. He started to bring him different kinds of books, ones on philosophy and metaphysics, ones like Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning that had a profound impact on my life as well. Thom said that his goal was to provide Rubin with food for his mind, body, and spirit.

Thom has continued to tell Rubin’s story in whatever medium he can. While Bob Dylan’s song Hurricane is the song that most people would attach to Rubin and John’s story, Thom also wrote a song representing the case a year before Dylan. During his second trial Rubin would enter the floor to speak to the lyrics of Thom’s song: 

Life…in the Trenton Penn

A fortress of misery

Stripped of human dignity

But he would never fade away

He couldn’t fade away

His efforts continue today. Thom co-wrote a musical with Peter Allen dictating Carter’s story and is now the lead in an effort to make a documentary series that uses 40 hours worth of tapes which only the BBC had used previously, telling the story in visual form. 

I worked with Thom, Rubin and John to bring their archives to Tufts, where they now exist in the Tufts Digital Collections and Archives. It was through Thom that Iris and I met Rubin and hosted him in our Truro home. I invited Rubin as a paragon of dignity and ethics to Tufts and honored Rubin posthumously with John present with a Dr. Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award. 

Months before his death, I hosted John and two extraordinary advocates, the authors of Justice on the Ropes at the Brookline Booksmith store for a book signing.

Now, while the archives are well presented at Tisch Library, the explicit intent of the archives was not to remain passive but to be actively utilized in campus programming and more importantly to inspire students to actively work on death row cases and on behalf of people unjustly accused and convicted. This responsibility contractually lies with the Director of the Institute for Global Leadership, but has remained fallow since I retired in 2016. With the incorporation of elements of the Institute into Tisch, given civic mandate and its highly successful Tufts University Prison Initiative at Tisch (TUPIT), Thom and I are intent on reviving its original intent. 

More information can be found here.

Emily Harburg

Emily Harburg is passionate about building technology that helps people feel more connected, supported, and motivated. She is the CEO and co-founder of PairUp, a B2B SaaS platform that helps connect and support staff across organizations. PairUp matches employees using a research-backed pairing algorithm and then helps staff get the ongoing support, learning, and connection that they need to thrive and grow at work. 

Emily’s background spans industry, startups, and academia. She has worked at Walt Disney Imagineering where she designed technology for the Disney theme parks, at Facebook (Meta) where she worked as a User Experience (EX) researcher, and at Education First (EF) where she led the Emerging Tech and Innovation team designing tech to support millions of students around the world. In 2015, Emily co-founded Brave Initiatives, an organization dedicated to helping women build tech skills and confidence in coding for social impact. She also co-founded Youth Lead the Change, a global youth leadership program for high school students, in partnership with Harvard University. 

Emily’s academic research lies at the intersection of technology and social behavior, and the role that technology can play in building self-efficacy and confidence. Her research has been published and shared in global conferences, academic journals, case studies, and news publications -- including the Harvard Business Review, TEDx, Computer Human Interaction (CHI), CNN, and more. 

Emily graduated with a B.A. in Social Anthropology and Psychology from Harvard College, and with a Ph.D. in Technology and Social Behavior from Northwestern University. In her free time, she enjoys hiking, skiing, photography, playing volleyball, and gathering for Thoughtlucks. 

I had the great pleasure of being welcomed warmly into the home of the extraordinary Fred and Suzie Harburg family when their son Ben entered Tufts University, and I was his mentor as the director of the Neubauer Scholars Program, a prestigious award he won. 

There I had the added pleasure of meeting Emily. I recently had the great opportunity of attending Brookline High School’s Sports Hall of Fame she was inducted for her captaining the Women's Varsity Volleyball and Crew teams and ran indoor track.

I vividly remember Emily, When she was the Vice President of the Leadership Institute at Harvard, I was pleased to expose her to the Institute's Synaptic Scholars and Empower and helped advise her on her petition to create an innovation major at Harvard, which subsequently emerged as Harvard's iLab.

While some details of her extraordinary Brookline, Harvard, and subsequent professional career are below, what impresses me most about her is her warmth, compassion, and generosity of spirit.

The Week in Ideas: A surreal encounter — with Alexei Navalny

 By Christian Caryl
Op-ed editor, Global Opinions
 Email

Vladimir Kara-Murza has experienced a lot during the year and a half he has spent in prison. Even so, the Russian opposition politician (and longtime Post contributing columnist) didn’t know quite what to expect when his guards recently surprised him with the news that he was about to take part in a video conference. Prison officials had given him no warning of the event.

So imagine his even greater surprise when he learned the reason: His virtual presence was requested at a new trial of his colleague Alexei Navalny, another prominent regime critic who has been serving a multiyear sentence since 2021. Law enforcement officials had decided to try Navalny yet again, this time for “extremism” — a term often used by the Kremlin to tar its pro-democracy opponents.

And yet, as Vladimir notes in his account of the incident, both men found cause to savor their long-distance encounter despite the bizarre circumstances under which it took place. "We hadn’t spoken since Alexei’s arrest in January 2021, so it was nice to see one another, even in such unorthodox circumstances," he writes. Vladimir's report helps to illuminate how these two prisoners — and thousands of others like them — have found the idealism and the strength to fight back against the savage regime of Vladimir Putin. We think you’ll find it worth the read.

(Alexander Nemenov/AFP/Getty Images)

Vladimir Kara-Murza from jail: What happened when I saw Alexei Navalny

What I saw made me think of a scene in a Franz Kafka book.

By Vladimir Kara-Murza ●  Read more »

Honoring Women. Life. Freedom.

From Sousan Abadian: Join us in NYC to honor all Iranians, from every walk of life, ethnicity, religious and political persuasion, who are taking a peaceful stand for needed cultural change and healing, greater freedom and justice.

I'm pleased to announce StopFemicideIran's upcoming event on September 14th to mark the anniversary of the Woman. Life. Freedom revolution in Iran. Please check out the list of amazing speakers who will be joining us in NYC.
The morning event will be held from 9:30 am-12 pm. Please check out this link for additional information. Space is limited. https://bit.ly/3L6borq
Afternoon event features a film festival which is almost SOLD OUT!

Priyanga Pugazh

I’m Priyanga, meaning “lovable person, or their presence makes the place more happy”.

During my teenage years, I used to love going to Marina Beach for sunrise which was and still is my most-liked part of the day. At that moment, I realized how small and insignificant I was in comparison to the vastness and complexity of the world. And yet, at the same time, I felt a sense of connection and belonging, I realized that we are all part of a larger ecosystem and that everything we do has an impact on the world around us which was one of the inspirations to choose ‘Sustainability and Energy management’ as an Undergrad degree from Stella Maris College, University of Madras.

I enjoyed the whole multidisciplinary learning process. I majored in Renewable Energy and minored in Energy studies securing two consecutive General Proficiency (2017 & 2018) and I was also a part of the ‘Core committee’ of the department. Taking various internships made me realize that working in sustainability is much deeper rooted than it is in books, and towards the end of the course I was left with numerous questions and cravings to obtain answers, which landed me with the desire to expand my knowledge of the environment and urge for finding solutions to today's environmental challenges, which led me to study Master's degree in Environmental Sciences from Bharathiar University, Coimbatore.

My higher education has given me a firm understanding of sustainability principles, as well as vital technical abilities that will enable me to tackle difficult environmental challenges and fine-tune my skills in Environmental law & policies, Toxicology, Biodiversity and Conservation, EIA, and GIS. I also worked on a 6 month long research project in toxicology, a TANSCHE-funded program, in which my part of the research was on “Effects of selected antibiotics on germination and plant growth of ladies finger.” I also worked on a minor self-interest project on ‘sustainable packaging -using edible films’ during UG.

A career in sustainability means a lot to me. It's not just a job or a profession, but a calling to make a positive impact on the world. I spent 6 months as a Research Analyst at SEPA, a non-profit organization that works on Sustainability, where I was part of India’s biggest renewable energy expo REI-Delhi 2022. Currently, I teach ‘Environment and Sustainability’ and ‘Global Challenges’, Foundation courses providing Environmental literacy to students at Sai University, Chennai. I have a strong sense of purpose and a desire to work toward a future that leads to sustainability. In the near future, I plan to pursue a master's degree or one-year program with adequate funding and might pursue a PhD later on.

Fun facts about me: I’m almost 6 foot tall (not so common here), I'm always up for having Chai (tea) and small talk, I love being around animals and I value little moments and little things above all else.

I am excited to welcome Priyanga to our community. She is now one of my teaching fellows for SaiU’s Global Challenges class. I already know that she is assiduous and I can not only rely upon her but anticipate her valuable insights into not only environmental and sustainability matters but given her quick grasp of complexity, other challenges.

Rachel Fleishman

Rachel Fleishman is a sustainability professional, scholar, and advisor, active in the fields of corporate sustainability, climate change and climate security. Rachel earned her MBA at Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University; her MPM at the School of Public Policy, University of Maryland and her BA in international relations and history at Tufts University. 

Rachel’s first professional passion was nuclear arms control. Following studies at Tufts and the University of Maryland she went to work for a consultancy designing arms control options for the US Government; then went in-house full time at the Pentagon. When the Soviet Union dissolved, some in the US defense and diplomatic corps shifted focus to environment, security and technology. Rachel did the same, helping to found and run the International Affairs office for the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Environmental Security). In this role Rachel helped pioneer military environmental collaboration as a tool of soft diplomacy; bring environmental security issues to NATO’s core; and designed and ran the first US environmental, security and intelligence conferences.  

 Rachel left the Pentagon to get an MBA from Kellogg, and has been working with the private sector ever since. However, Rachel has maintained ties to the defense arena as a Senior Fellow at the Center for Climate and Security, where she publishes and offers briefings on climate security in Asia Pacific.  She has also led nonprofit organizations, including the Climate Change Business Forum and the United Jewish Congregation (both of Hong Kong).  

Rachel believes that climate and nature are the defining issues of our time. Humanity’s response today, and in the next few years, will determine whether society endures. Her personal contribution lies in working across organizations and value chains to recalibrate economic processes and relationships in pursuit of a more sustainable future. She has a particular focus on critical interfaces: business, government and social welfare; innovation, product and market; and companies, climate and society.   

Over the past 10 years Rachel has helped organizations from startups to multinationals achieve their sustainability goals. She is currently Managing Director, Consumer Sectors and Business Transformation for the global nonprofit Business for Social Responsibility.  

Remi

Welcome to some very recent Remi experiences on Corn Hill Beach in Truro. The first picture you will notice has a bespeckled pup. Why? Because my dear friend, Michael Maso, brought me up on a missing part of my childhood, namely, the cartoon Mr. Peabody and Sherman. When you read the description below, you will see how apt the relationship is. There is no doubt that Remi, whom I obviously adore, is like Mr. Peabody, the far more sagacious partner in the relationship.  I hope you enjoy her, and delight in her, as I do, as my entire family does. Whenever I am stressed, she is empathically at my side, and regardless of what side of the bed I wake up on each morning, our early morning runs on the beach put me in the right frame of mind to meet the challenges of the day. This posting will be updated more frequently than any other! This entry hopefully brings a smile to your face and makes it conclusive that this is not a LinkedIn, but a beloved community.

To those of you who really know me, you will recognize how accurate this is!

Mr. Peabody, the most accomplished canine in the world, and his boy, Sherman, use a time machine called the Wabac to embark on outrageous adventures. However, when Sherman takes the Wabac without permission to impress his friend Penny, he accidentally rips a hole in the universe and causes havoc with world history. It's up to Mr. Peabody to mount a rescue and prevent the past, present and future from being permanently altered.

Martin O'Brien

Martin O’Brien is the Founder and Executive Director of the Social Change Initiative (SCI), an international not-for-profit organization based in Belfast.  SCI works to help activists and donors to be more effective agents for change.  Its work is focused on the themes of peacebuilding, equality, human rights and migration.    

Prior to joining SCI, Martin worked for 11 years at the Atlantic Philanthropies where he was Senior Vice President and managed the foundation’s global grant-making programs on Health, Ageing, Children and Youth, and Reconciliation and Human Rights. He led the planning process for the conclusion of Atlantic’s programmatic grant-making.  

Martin is also a seasoned activist for social change having worked for over 30 years in the peace and human rights movement in Northern Ireland. He led the Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ) which campaigned locally and internationally to advance human rights in Northern Ireland.  He was centrally involved in the efforts to secure strong measures to protect human rights and equality in the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement. 

Martin’s work as an effective advocate for human rights and peace has been internationally recognized with a number of awards and honors.  He has extensive experience of high-impact philanthropy, fundraising, human rights, advocacy, peacebuilding, and conflict resolution. His work as an activist and as a strategic grantmaker has given him a particular insight into how change happens and the role that philanthropy can play. 

 

I have the privilege of knowing Martin who I have heard of for a very long time from Padraig O’Malley, a common friend, in the wonderful weave of Convisero. I was actually introduced to him by Adi Nassar, the program manager of Amal-Tikva. I was introduced to Adi by his predecessor Amitai Abuozaglo. This came about initially by my meeting Amitai as my Harvard student when I interviewed and successfully nominated him for the Oslo Scholars Program. It is clear that Martin will be a tremendous asset for the course I will teach on mediation, negotiation and conflict resolution in the spring of 2024 at Sai University. We are intent on trying to bring Indian and Pakistani students together to begin to think about divided societies and in particular the future of Kashmir.  

Jim Gilbert

Jim grew up in Buenos Aires but spent many summers in Cape Cod where he became one of the first surfers on the East Coast. His career in journalism started at the Provincetown Advocate in Cape Cod, and continued in San Juan, Newport, and Ft. Lauderdale, focusing on maritime issues. Jim was editor-in-chief of the publishing company Seven Seas Press but later became fascinated by the beauty, mechanics, and people of superyachts (yachts over 130’), so he founded the magazine ShowBoats International to cover them. He was the founder, editor-in-chief, and eventual owner of the magazine, which received some of the highest praise in the superyacht industry. 

While working at ShowBoats International, Jim founded and worked for 24 years for the charity The International SeaKeepers Society, which has done incredible work in protecting the marine environment. He engaged readers as supporters of the charity, raising over $10 million to fund this work, with over 100 members paying $250K each to join by the time he sold the magazine in 2005. 

Jim also wrote The Admiral, a climate change-inspired novel, a fantasy book telling the story of a mid-ocean community living the realities of climate change. He then became president of Aquos Yachts and Christensen Shipyard, both yacht construction companies. He now lives and continues to fish in Cape Cod. Jim studied sociology at Occidental College as an undergraduate and completed three years of interdisciplinary postgraduate studies at UMass, Amherst. 

I met Jim simply as a fisherman, or more appropriately, The Truro Fisherman, through Convisero mentor Ted Kurland. We had a number of lovely conversations about boats and fishing, mind you I never had a fishing rod in my hand, but he intrigued me. But now, reviewing this bio of a new friend you will see why. He will make an ideal addition to our Global Maritime Accord and has agreed to advise students on maritime issues.

EARLY MOMENTS FROM 2018 TO 2020 AND THE MOST RECENT CONVISERO GATHERING iN 2023

The first Lumay and Padden Murphy where I married two of my former students is an exemplar of the most appropriate intimate meeting of the community.

A Moment in Time and A Convisero retrospective provide detailed explanations of the linkages the community was enacting in 2020.

Mae-ling Lokko

Mae-ling Lokko is an architectural scientist, designer and educator from Ghana and the Philippines who works with agrowaste and renewable biobased materials. Through her work, Lokko explores themes of “generative justice” through the development of new models of distributed production and collaboration. 

Lokko is an Assistant Professor at Yale University’s School of Architecture (YSoA) . Her research at Yale’s Center for Ecosystems in Architecture focuses on ecological design, integrated material life cycle design and the broad development and evaluation of renewable biobased materials. Her practice Willow Technologies, Ltd. based in Accra, Ghana that upcycles agrowaste into affordable biobased building materials and for water quality treatment applications. Her work was nominated for the Visible Award 2019, Royal Academy Dorfman Award 2020 and she was a finalist for the Hublot Design Prize 2019. 

Lokko’s recent works have been exhibited at major museums globally including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Stedelijk Museum, Netherlands; Museum of the Future, Dubai; Z33 House for Contemporary Art, Design and Architecture, Belgium; Triennale Milano, Italy, Somerset House, London, Nobel Prize Museum, Stockholm; and the Luma Foundation, Arles. Her work has been featured in ICON Magazine, Blueprint, Wallpaper, MOLD Magazine, Frieze Magazine, RIBA Journal, DOMUS, DAMN Magazine and other global design publications.

I first met Sherman when I was a sophomore and joined the second class of Synaptic Scholars at Tufts University. Sherm created and inspired a rich, vibrant community to pursue their passions in unconventional ways, through connections inside and outside the school and through a range of friendships. I found a community of sorts there at the time. 

Sherman has remained the kind of life long mentor I have always been grateful to have, unwavering in his support and fascination and bravery (and inspiring bravery in others) in all the ways that count. And I’m so grateful for spirit of intellectual diversity that grew during my years in Sherm’s orbit.

As Mae-ling indicated, I met her first as a young, yet having already lived in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and the United States, a worldly sophisticated sophomore at Tufts. I had initiated Synaptic Scholars the year before with the blessings of then President Larry Bacow and my Provost Jamshed Bharuch. They were very encouraging of the effort to give meaning to interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary inquiry, terms that I found both intriguing and yet often described in a very manner. I thought the best way to exemplify the concept would be to find and encourage students whose intellectual thirst could not be slacked by majoring and minoring in the usual manner.

I chose the first cohort of intriguing students and gave them the mandate to experiment “at the margins,” a space that Larry described as a fulcrum of the most interesting ideas, and what Jamshed termed the “frontiers of knowledge.” I helped the first class tap the second class, witnessing the interviews, consulting with the students, empowered with the full freedom to choose their cohort. 

Mae-ling was an overwhelming, unanimous choice. She thoughtfully embraced intellectual intricacy and understood the nuances of self-identity. She was a precious avatar of the vision I had.  She was thoroughly passionate about architecture and especially was fascinated by traditional and vernacular Asian and African design. Her involvement in Synaptics allowed her to concentrate on reviving a landscape design program in her Ghanaian boarding school that she termed "The Uzuri Project" (named after the Swahili word for beauty.) 

In her being and action, Mae-ling exemplified the complexity of hybridity and cosmopolitanism. With confidence, grace and strength, she understood how to embrace her identity, transcend boundaries and borders, and navigate and embrace multiple cultural worlds and communities. President of the Tufts African Students Organization, Mae-ling was also active with the Asian-American Society, Tufts' Emerging Black Leadership Symposium, and the University's multiracial organization  Loving drama and performance arts, she was active in both Tufts Irish Dance Club and the Filipino Cultural Society. Her concerns for humanity transcended Tufts and she was active in the organization Emergency, centered on quality health care for victims of poverty and war.

 It was clear to me that Mae-ling was happiest with a tangible, visceral engagement with creation. I remember her design plans to redo the landscaping and installations of the wide expanse of Tufts Capen House’s grounds. I knew she was destined for a distinctive distinguished career, one fusing theory and practice, that already her trajectory at Yale and beyond speaks to. 

Anyone familiar with Mae-ling’s work would find it distinctly strikingly eclectic, path-breaking and precedent-setting. Mae-ling is insightful, thoughtful and fearless. She robustly embodies the word innovation. Her work is breathtaking and the essence of the concept of sustainability. Her intellect is matched by a joyous, humane buoyancy, immediately evident in the warmth and radiance of her personality. I happily remember her trenchent commentaries and thoughtful academic presentations, marked by verve, enthusiasm and often unchecked excitement. When people say of a person, they "light up a room," it is Mae-ling they are talking about.