A Landmark 10/7 Lawsuit: Holding Iran, Syria and North Korea Accountable

James Pasch is the ADL’s Vice President, Litigation, after serving as ADL’s Cleveland Regional Director (serving Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia and Western Pennsylvania). James is leading a legal advocacy practice for ADL during a particularly important time, as antisemitism and extremism become more mainstream.

Notably, in November 2023, he oversaw the launch of CALL (Campus Antisemitism Legal Line), a free hotline, providing legal assistance for anyone experiencing antisemitism on college campuses. The project has already led to sweeping changes that have been instituted on campuses and K12 schools to protect Jewish students, after ADL filings.

James is also leading ADL’s legal efforts in fighting back against the deadliest antisemitic attack since the Holocaust. ADL (the Anti-Defamation League) and Crowell & Moring LLP filed a federal lawsuit alleging Iran, Syria and North Korea provided material support to Hamas that enabled it to commit atrocities in Israel on October 7, 2023, that killed, injured, and terrorized scores of U.S. citizens and their families. In a world in which October 7^th denialism took hold almost immediately after the attack, this case will set the record straight about the horrors of what occurred on that day, who was responsible for providing material support for this heinous terrorist attack, and will ultimately provide a path for justice, accountability and redress.

In his time leading the ADL Cleveland Office, James launched a pro-bono legal assistance program to assist victims of hate crimes in Ohio and drove the region’s response in the aftermath of the Tree of Life synagogue attack in Pittsburgh. James Pasch graduated from University of Vermont and earned his law degree at Case Western Reserve University School of Law. Prior to entering the legal profession, James worked on Capitol Hill, first for Senator Frank Lautenberg and then as a law clerk on the Senate Judiciary Committee for Senator Patrick Leahy. He then built a thriving small firm litigation practice in Cleveland. James served as the Case Western Reserve Law School’s Assistant Dean of Development and External Affairs during the Law School’s Capital Campaign. James has also served two-terms as a Councilman in Beachwood, where he led the City’s passage of its anti-discrimination ordinance.

Aryeh is a partner at Crowell & Moring LLP in Washington, DC, where he has practiced for the past 26 years.  As part of his robust litigation and counseling practice across a variety of practice areas, including hospitality, higher education, sovereign litigation, and general commercial litigation, Aryeh co-chairs the firm’s Terrorism Litigation Practice.  For more than two decades, Aryeh has represented (and continues to represent) hundreds of victims of state-sponsored terrorism and their families in litigation and post-litigation efforts to obtain both recognition and compensation for their injuries and losses in attacks spanning over 40 years.  Aryeh’s team currently represents nearly 200 victims of the October 7 Hamas Attack on Israel (including 85 victims, survivors, and families from the Nova music festival) in litigation in U.S. federal district court in the District of Columbia.  For the October 7 litigation, Aryeh’s team has partnered with the ADL as co-counsel and is working closely with the Barak Malkit Law Office in Israel.

Joel Cohen is Director of Government Relations for the ADL (Anti-Defamation League), where he leads ADL’s federal advocacy efforts on international affairs and tech policy, specifically focused on combatting online hate and harassment. He began his career interning on Capitol Hill for United States Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland during his final semester at Syracuse University. Following graduation, he was hired full-time in the Senator’s personal office before transitioning to work for the Senator in his capacity as the Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC). After a brief hiatus from the Hill, during which he obtained his M.P.A. from the University of Maryland, he returned to Capitol Hill as a Legislative Assistant focusing on foreign policy and gaming issues and was subsequently promoted to Legislative Director in the Office of Congresswoman Dina Titus of Nevada’s First Congressional District.