David Harris

Serving most recently as the CEO of the American Jewish Committee (AJC) from 1990-2022, David Harris has played a pivotal role in shaping critical global issues as a wider American leader, much like Senator Henry M. “Scoop” Jackson himself. Over the course of the past five decades, he has been at the forefront of attempts to promote shared democratic values and ideas, and strengthen alliances across the Free World.

As a human rights activist, David Harris championed those oppressed by the former Soviet Union, and helped create the consensus that the USSR was morally reprehensible as well as a strategic competitor. He supported an end to Communism in eastern Europe, has advocated extensively for NATO expansion, and has contributed to the recent flowering of diplomacy in the New Middle East. He has been a spirited fighter in combatting global Antisemitism and resolute in promoting interfaith dialogue, as well as an understanding of the history of genocide and its contemporary relevance. He was referred to by the late Israeli President and Nobel Laureate Shimon Peres as “the foreign minister of the Jewish people”, and is the most decorated Jewish organizational leader in U.S. history.

As well as being the recipient of four honorary doctorates, including the most recent one in 2022 from Brandeis University, David Harris received his education at the University of Pennsylvania and London School of Economics. He also served as a Visiting Scholar at Johns Hopkins University and both a Junior and Senior Associate at Oxford University. He is the author of several books, as well as hundreds of op-eds and articles on global issues in leading media outlets around the world.