Photo by Keren Manor, Activestills
Board of Directors
Attorney Dan Yakir
President
Dan Yakir has been active in ACRI since 1982, and has been officially working as a lawyer at ACRI since 1989. From 1989-1995, he served as a lawyer in ACRI's legal department, and since 1995 has served as ACRI's chief legal counsel until 2023, when becoming the President of ACRI.
Over the years, Dan has led ACRI to unprecedented achievements in the promotion of human rights, in particular the right to equality, freedom of expression, human rights violations in the occupied territories and LGBTQI rights. The landmark cases and petitions in which Dan represented ACRI include the Kaadan case, cases against torture, marriage registration of gay couples married abroad, the cancellation of a British Mandate Press Ordinance, and more. He has received many awards for his work in advancing human rights, among them a special prize from Israel's LBGT Taskforce (2005), The Human Rights Defender prize from the New Israel Fund (2011), The Goldberg Prize from the Institute for International Education (IIE) in New York (2012), and the Yeshayahu Leibowitz Prize of Yesh Gvul (There's a Limit) (2018).
Dan has a LL.B. from the Faculty of Law at Tel Aviv University and an LL.M. from American University Washington College of Law, where he studied as part of the New Israel Fund's law program. During his secondary studies he worked as an intern at the ACLU of the District of Columbia and at the LGBTQ Project of the ACLU in New York.
Professor Amit Schejter
Chairperson
Professor Schejter is a Professor of Communication Studies at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) serving as President of Oranim College. He is former Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at BGU and a Visiting Professor and co-director of the Institute for Information Policy at the Bellisario College of Communications at the Pennsylvania State University. He studies and teaches media policy and law and specializes in the connection between communication and social justice as well as in the advancement of the “right to communicate.” He is the author and editor of eight books and more than seventy articles, book chapters and law reviews as well as founding editor of the Journal of Information Policy.
Schejter previously served as senior advisor to Israeli ministers of Education and Culture Yitzhak Navon and Shulamit Aloni, as Director of Legal Affairs and International Relations at the Israel Broadcasting Authority, and as Vice President for Regulatory Affairs at Cellcom. He has served as chairman and member of several committees that advised various government ministries and the Knesset in the fields of communications and culture. In his work he combines his professional expertise with volunteer work and public activity. In addition to his board membership at ACRI, he is a member of the board of directors of the Jaffa Theater - the Center for Arab-Hebrew Culture, and co-director of the Shulamit Aloni Prize.
Attorney Yonatan Berman
Board member
Joined ACRI's board in October 2019. One of the founding partners of Dr. Ra'anan Har-Zahav, Edelstein, Berman Law Offices. Numerous principled legal proceedings, particularly in the area of immigration and refugee law and in matters relating to LGBT rights.
Professor Ido Bruno
Board member
A designer, teacher, treasurer, and creator. CEO of the Israel Museum from 2017 to 2021. A professor of design in the Industrial Design Department at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design. Ido has served as a member of various professional committees of the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Culture and as a judge in various design and art awards in Israel and internationally.
In his role as CEO of the Israel Museum, he worked to improve the accessibility of the museum to the Arab society, including collaboration with the 'Sikuy' association to map the accessibility of the Arabic language in the museum. He initiated the establishment of new accessibility standards for exhibitions for Arabic speakers, nurtured Arabic-language training activities in the youth department, and actively promoted funding for projects such as 'Laylat al-Qadr.'
Following the 'Guardian of the Walls' operation, he initiated and raised funding for a joint life project for Jewish and Arab children in the city of Lod through shared engagement in art, among other activities. Additionally, he focused on nurturing and expanding the museum's activities for the training and accessibility of populations with special needs.
Since January 2023, Professor Bruno has been initiating and participating in various frameworks that foster non-violent protest in the public space, using means from the fields of art and design.
Ms. Summer Jaber-Massarwa
Board member
Joined ACRI's Board on October 2019. An organizational consultant and a resource development and financial management consultant, Ms. Jaber-Massarwa has extensive experience in organizations that deal with Jewish-Arab relations.
Shovit Malmad
Board member
Shovit Malmad is a social worker and mental health specialist. She established and directed the Family Center at the Mental Health Center, Lev Hasharon, in Pardesia until her retirement in 2017. Today, she owns a private psychotherapy clinic in Herzliya. For the past two years, she has been leading the group of instructors at the Zehronit daycare for the children of foreign workers in Tel Aviv.
Shovit is the daughter of Yehoshua A. Galboah, a former member of the Zionist youth movement who served as a prisoner in the Russian Gulag from 1939 to 1947 for 'conspiratorial activity,' namely, facilitating the transfer of Jews from occupied Poland to Russia, which was still free at the time. Her mother, Dina Galboah, was a member of the "Nasha Group," an underground organization in occupied Poland. Shovit continues in her parents' footsteps with social involvement related to human rights.
Shiri Rafaeli
Board member
A judge in the Magistrate's Court.
Shiri grew up in Ramat Hasharon. After serving in the IDF, she studied philosophy and art history, and later law. Between 1986 and 2004, she worked as a lawyer, both in civil law in a private firm and in public law, with an emphasis on human rights.
Among other things, she managed, for five years, a research project on behalf of the National Council for Children on the rights of children to separate representation in court, and for a year managed the Haim Cohen Human Rights Center, dealing with the representation of Palestinians in this field.
In 2004, she was appointed as a peace judge and served as a civil judge in the Peace Court in Rishon LeZion and Petah Tikva. After retiring from the judiciary in 2012, she specialized in the United States in mediation and conflict resolution in the public sector, specifically in techniques for finding agreed-upon solutions in public disputes involving multiple interest groups. In the past seven years, Shiri Rafaeli has been an active artist and has also been involved in several organizations in the field of education and culture.
Professor Barak Medina
Board member
Joined ACRI's board in October 2017. Professor Barak Medina is the rector of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and holds the Justice Haim H. Cohn Chair in Human Rights Law in the Faculty of Law at the University. He served as the Academic Director of the Center for Multiculturalism and Diversity as well as the Academic Director of the Transitional Justice Program at the University. Professor Medina conducts research and teaches Human Rights Law, Constitutional Law, and Administrative Law. He serves as Israel’s acting representative at the Venice Conference of the Council of Europe.
Dr. Adam Shinar
Board member
Professor of Law at the Reichman University, where he has been a faculty member since 2013. Adam completed his doctorate at Harvard University, under the President of the Supreme Court, Aharon Barak, and worked at the Center for Religious and State Reform then the Center for Jewish Pluralism. In parallel with his doctorate, he volunteered for the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and the Human Rights Organization in India.
Professor Shinar specializes in constitutional law and human rights, and writes, among other things, on freedom of expression, human rights in the Occupied Territories and the status of public servants. In the past two years, he has also served as the academic head of the legal clinics system at the Interdisciplinary Center, providing legal assistance to various vulnerable populations, including asylum seekers, migrant workers, people in poverty, people with disabilities, and youth.