Accountability Starts Within: Confronting Antisemitism on the Left

Dr. Naomi Rodriguez is a veteran mathematics educator with a Doctorate in Educational Leadership and Management from Drexel University. She is a nationally engaged advocate focused on elevating educator voice, strengthening student safety, and advancing civil rights protections in public education. As Communications Chair of the NEA Jewish Affairs Caucus, she leads strategic messaging to confront antisemitism in educational spaces and promote institutional accountability. That work, combined with her leadership training and classroom experience, deepened her understanding of antisemitism as a symptom of broader gaps in institutional accountability infrastructure. In response, she founded and now serves as President of One Nation of Educators, an organization devoted to advancing civil rights accountability in education through educator-led systems that strengthen transparency and governance integrity. Her work centers on ensuring that public education institutions translate policy into consistent, enforceable protections for students and educators.

Amanda Berman is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Zioness, where she works to empower and activate Zionists on the progressive left to stand proudly in social justice spaces as Jews and Zionists. She is also a civil rights attorney who previously worked to fight antisemitism legally, spearheading such groundbreaking initiatives as the international action against Kuwait Airways for its discrimination against Israeli nationals, and the dual cases against San Francisco State University for its constitutional and civil rights violations against Jewish and Israeli students and community members.

Amanda writes on Jewish, social justice and civil rights issues, speaks and presents before diverse audiences, and is a media contributor across various mediums and outlets. She is a graduate of the Anti-Defamation League’s Glass Leadership Institute, the recipient of Hadassah’s prestigious Myrtle Wreath Award, and was listed by the Algemeiner as one of the top “100 people positively contributing to Jewish life” in 2018.

Amanda graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a BA in Diplomatic History and a Master of Governmental Administration and received her Juris Doctor from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, where she was a Public Service Scholar; served in the Bet Tzedek Legal Services Clinic, providing legal services to the underrepresented; served in the Advanced Human Rights Clinic, providing legal services to immigrants and refugees; sat on the Executive Board of the Cardozo Advocates for Battered Women; and was a Fellow in the Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights Clinic. She practiced securities litigation at Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP before dedicating her career to the advancement and protection of the Jewish people, our values, our allies and our democracy.

Lauren Wolman is ADL’s Director of Federal Policy and Strategy where she leads ADL’s engagement on Capitol Hill. She leads federal advocacy on key issues including extremism, national security, appropriations, and hate crimes. Lauren previously worked on Capitol Hill for 13 years, where she focused on efforts to strengthen the U.S.-Israel relationship, combat antisemitism, and fight hate in all forms. She served as the Floor Director and Legislative Director for Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Chief Deputy Whip and senior member of the Appropriations Committee. She also worked for her hometown representative, Congressman Brad Sherman where she ultimately became his Legislative Director and Deputy Chief of Staff. Lauren was born and raised in Los Angeles, California and has a Bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Kathy E. Manning served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2021-2024, representing North Carolina’s 6th Congressional District. Manning was Vice Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Vice Chair of the Subcommittee on the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia, and served on the Subcommittee on Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations and the Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, Central Asia, and Nonproliferation. Manning served on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce and on the Subcommittee on Higher Education, the Subcommittee on Heath, Employment, Labor, and Pensions, and the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education.

Manning was the lead co-chair of the House Bipartisan Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, and she authored the Countering Antisemitism Act, a comprehensive bipartisan bill to implement key provisions of the U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism. A champion of women’s reproductive rights, Manning authored the Right to Contraception Act, to protect the right to use the full-range of FDA-approved birth control. A former immigration attorney, she was one of the original co-sponsors of the Dignity Act, a bipartisan, comprehensive immigration bill to bring our immigration system in line with today’s economic and security needs.

Before coming to Congress, Manning was the first woman to chair the national board of the Jewish Federations of North America and served in leadership roles at the Jewish Agency for Israel, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, and was the founding board chair of Prizma: Center for Jewish Day Schools.

Manning is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She graduated from Harvard University, where she founded The Radcliffe Pitches, and the University of Michigan Law School. She and her husband Randall Kaplan have three married children and three adorable grandchildren.