Hadassah-Brandeis Institute

10/20/2026

We're honored to share this upcoming event with world-renowned scholar Eva Illouz, "Antizionism and Antisemitism", co-sponsored by our colleagues at the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis along with the Schusterman Center for Judaic & Israel Studies - University of Oklahoma and the Schusterman Center at the University of Texas at Austin.

A French-Israeli sociologist, Eva Illouz will draw from her recent publication "October 8th: The Genealogy of a Virtuous Hatred," in which she asks how the Global Left “deserted, ignored and stigmatized Jews who were shocked and mourning” the events of October 7th, 2023.

Thursday, October 22, 1 PM EST. Registration is not required for this Zoom Webinar: http://tinyurl.com/just-zoom-in

Join us Thursday at noon for a special Zoom Webinar with Eva Illouz, "Antizionism and Antisemitism." Registration is not required for this Zoom Webinar: tinyurl.com/just-zoom-in
Our sixth annual Schusterman Centers collaboration, with the UT Schusterman Center for Jewish Studies and the Brandeis Schusterman Center for Israel Studies.

10/18/2026

Watch this year's powerful HBI Diane Markowicz Memorial Lecture on Gender and Human Rights: WHOSE SUFFERING COUNTS? SEXUAL TORTURE, HOSTAGE-TAKING AND SURVIVORS’ JUSTICE IN A DIVIDED WORLD, delivered by Dr. Alice Edwards, former UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, 2022-26, on October 7. Edwards reflected on the major wars and crises she covered, why investigating sexual violence and torture remains so difficult, and what is lost when human rights principles are applied selectively.

The Markowicz Lecture was the keynote address of the Brandeis - Bar Ilan Conference on Conflict Related Sexual Violence and The Legacy of October 7, co-convened by the HBI Project on Gender, Culture, Religion and the Law and The Dinah Project at the Rackman Center - מרכז רקמן, Faculty of Law, Bar-Ilan University.

Watch: https://www.brandeis.edu/hbi/events/past/index.html

10/18/2026

"In conflicts across history, r**e and other forms of sexual violence have been all too common. But investigation, acknowledgement, and remedy for survivors have often been inadequate or entirely lacking. Alice Edwards, an international lawyer who has spent nearly 30 years working to advance women’s rights, refugee rights and human rights, addressed this gap and outlined necessary reforms at (HBI’s) annual Diane Markowicz Memorial Lecture on Gender and Human Rights at Brandeis on Oct. 7."

Thank you Bari Walsh and Brandeis University Stories.

📷 Image: Dr. Lisa Fishbayn Joffe, Shulamit Reinharz Director of HBI, introducing Dr. Alice Edwards.

Watch the lecture here: https://www.brandeis.edu/hbi/events/past/index.html

https://www.brandeis.edu/stories/2026/october/diane-markowicz-memorial-lecture.html

In conflicts across history, r**e and other forms of sexual violence have been all too common. But investigation, acknowledgement, and remedy for survivors have often been inadequate or entirely lacking. Alice Edwards, an international lawyer who has spent nearly 30 years working to advance women’...

10/08/2026

After co-convening yesterday's Brandeis - Bar Ilan Conference on Conflict Related Sexual Violence and the Legacy of October 7, a powerful, moving and productive day, HBI Director Lisa Fishbayn Joffe and Professor Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, Bar Ilan University, co-founder of the Dinah Project, underscore the ongoing, critical need to move past the question of whether conflict related sexual violence is recognized but, rather, whether the international legal and human rights systems we have today can translate recognition into accountability and justice. Thank you EJewish Philanthropy.

Brandeis University, The Dinah Project, Rackman Center - מרכז רקמן, Bar-Ilan University.

Sexual violence has a long and well-documented history in warfare and in Jewish history specifically, including its use in pogroms against Jews in Eastern Europe at the turn of the 20th century and in atrocities committed against Jewish women during the Holocaust. Despite this long history, when the...

10/07/2026

Last evening, ahead of today’s Brandeis - Bar Ilan Conference on Conflict Related Sexual Violence and the Legacy of October 7, HBI joined with our friends and partners at The Dinah Project, conference panelists who traveled internationally to speak, Brandeis University President Arthur Levine and Brandeis faculty members, and others for an evening of community and action.

The conference kicked off this morning with Dr. Alice Edwards’s presentation of the Diane Markowicz Memorial Lecture, “Whose Suffering Counts? Sexual Torture, Hostage-Taking and Survivors’ Justice in a Divided World”. Dr. Edwards is the former UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, 2022-26.

Following the lecture, conference moderators and panelists spent the day focused on another critical question, “How can the perpetrators of conflict related sexual violence be held accountable?". Discussions featured new research that brings the Israeli experience of conflict related sexual violence of Oct. 7, 2023 and as hostages into conversation with responses to other incidents of conflict related sexual violence in Kosovo, Rwanda, and the Ukraine.

Also discussed was The Dinah Project's "A Quest for Justice: October 7 and Beyond", a book of findings and recommendations establishing a legal infrastructure for prosecuting the sexual violence crimes, even when specific acts cannot be attributed directly to individual perpetrators. The book is available at no cost to read or download from The Dinah Project's website.

We are honored that Merav Amir, Nava Ben-Or, Christen Broecker, Jennie Burnet, Flora Cassen, Hadar Dancig-Rosenberg, Alice Edwards, Meryl Frank, Rosa Freedman, Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, Remzije Istrefi, Sylvia Neil, Naama Shik, Karin Stögner, Sagit Yehoshua, and Sharon Zagagi-Pinhas joined us today at Brandeis University and remotely to share their work.

HBI and Bar-Ilan thank our conference sponsors: The Sylvia Neil and Dan Fischel Endowment, The Brandeis Center for Jewish Studies, and The Sarnat Center for the Study of Anti-Jewishness at Brandeis for their support of these crucial discussions.

Recordings of most of the conference panels and Dr. Alice Edwards’s presentation of the Markowicz Lecture will be available to view soon. Find more information on these important discussions and the women shaping them on HBI’s website: https://bit.ly/BrandeisBarIlanConference.

10/07/2026

Today at HBI, as we mark the third year since the deadly Hamas attacks on Israel and the beginning of the long hostage crisis, we hold all those lost, taken, and affected in our hearts. We were honored that Dr. Alice Edwards, former UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, 2022-26, joined HBI to deliver this year’s Diane Markowicz Memorial Lecture on Gender and Human Rights: “Whose Suffering Counts? Sexual Torture, Hostage-Taking And Survivors’ Justice In A Divided World?”

Dr. Edwards drew on her work as the first woman to serve as United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture to reflect on the major wars and crises she covered, why investigating sexual violence and torture remains so difficult, and what is lost when human rights principles are applied selectively.

We thank Sylvia Neil and her husband Dan Fischel for supporting this important lecture series in memory of Sylvia’s late sister, Diane Markowicz, and Dr. Edwards for delivering this year’s Markowicz Memorial Lecture. We look forward to sharing the recording with you soon on HBI’s website.

10/07/2026

“CRSV (conflict related sexual violence) can happen everywhere, and we are hoping to create guidelines for authorities, institutions, and organizations internationally and nationally... We’re trying to bring a roadmap with many stops and stations on how to collect evidence and then later on how to prosecute.”

- Sharon Zagagi-Pinhas, the director of The Dinah Project and a former IDF chief military prosecutor, adding that the Brandeis - Bar Ilan Conference on Conflict Related Sexual Violence and the Legacy of October 7 (October 7, 2026 at Brandeis University) aims to build on a “roadmap that we created on how to prosecute” crimes of sexual violence in conflicts.

Brandeis University conference to discuss legal 'roadmap' for prosecuting conflict-related sexual violence, which could apply to other regions too