EMILY SCHRADER, AUTHOR
Emily Schrader is a reknowned American-Israeli journalist and human rights activist from Israel focusing on Israeli and Iranian affairs. Emily sits on the executive board of the Institute for Voices of Liberty, a think tank focused on European and American Iran policy, and has advised lawmakers across North America and Europe on Iran policy, specially related to Tehran’s terror proxies in the Middle East.
In addition to her work as a journalist, she is an award winning content creator with a following of more than half a million people, including tens of thousands inside of Iran. Originally from Los Angeles, California, Schrader studied political science at the University of Southern California, where she was first exposed to antisemitism and anti-Israel radicalism in America. In response, she studied the Israeli-Palestinian conflict extensively, visited Israel on Birthright, and got involved in Jewish life on campus. During her time on campus, she was a leader in multiple Jewish organizations and upon graduating, founded the StandWithUs digital department in Los Angeles. Schrader returned to Israel for her MA in political communications at Tel Aviv University in 2013, graduating first in her class, Magna Cum Laude.
After graduation, she led the StandWithUs digital department in eighteen languages, to a peak weekly reach of 105 million people. Her work in Arabic social media educating about Israel was named as one of the top 100 most influential social projects by the Classy Awards for nonprofits. In 2015, she made Aliyah and in 2019, she co-founded the digital marketing company Social Lite Creative, specializing in digital consulting and social media management for nonprofits and political causes.
In 2020, Emily began writing for The Jerusalem Post as a columnist focusing on human rights issues in the Middle East, antisemitism, and Iranian affairs. Emily also was one of the cofounders of the #AdoptIHRA campaign signed on to by over 120 Jewish and pro-Israel organizations, which called on social media platforms to adopt the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism as a basis for reviewing online antisemitism on their platforms. Emily has been a globally renowned lecturer on the dangers of social media antisemitism and has advised lawmakers in the Israeli Knesset, the European Parliament, the US Congress, and as part of the Inter-parliamentary Taskforce on Combating Antisemitism.
Following the murder of Mahsa Amini by the Islamic regime in Iran in 2022, Emily was a leader in the Women, Life, Freedom movement, co-organizing the first protest in the Middle East in support of the Iranian people and speaking out in the international media against the regime in Fox News, BBC, Sky News, Talk TV, Voice of America, NBC News, ABC News, Washington Post, and many other international media sources. Additionally, she partnered with Iranian dissidents around the world to lobby lawmakers to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization, and enforce sanctions against the regime. Emily also partnered with Iranian artist Hooman Khalili to bring a mural project to Israel creating 18 works of art celebrating the historic friendship between the people of Iran and the people of Israel – while honoring the martyrs of the regime who have been killed for protesting against the regime.
As a result of her activism, Emily has been targeted repeatedly by the regime in Iran, receiving countless threats to her life and harassment from the regime itself. Emily has also been targeted by the Chinese communist party for her reporting on Chinese human rights violations before the Beijing Olympics, and Turkey for her reporting about the Armenian Genocide. Despite the dangers, Emily remains committed to exposing the regime and speaking out against dictatorships the world over, which almost invariably side against Israel in the internationally community as well. In 2024, Emily received the Truth in Journalism award from the Eretz Cultural Center. This is her first book.
emilykschrader@gmail.com
https://emilyschrader.net/
BLAKE FLAYTON, AUTHOR
Blake Flayton is an American-Israeli activist, journalist, and student based in Tel Aviv. His journey into advocacy began during his time as a student at George Washington University, where he aimed to build a career in progressive politics, working on Capitol Hill for his Congressman and for presidential campaigns. However, encountering antisemitism from friends and peers led him to write an op-ed for The New York Times on the biases of left-wing young people, marking the start of his writing career.
Flayton went on to become a weekly columnist for the Jewish Journal and has contributed to various publications, including Tablet Magazine, The Free Press, Ha’aretz, Fathom Journal, and his own Substack, Bourgeois Nationalist, which covers Jewish history, Israel and the Diaspora. Flayton was recognized as one of Algemeiner Magazine’s Top 100 Most Influential Jews (2020), and received the American Jewish Press Association (AJPA) Simon Rockower Award for Excellence in Writing about Jewish Heritage and Jewish Peoplehood in Europe. (2022)
After graduating, Flayton made Aliyah and became involved in the anti-judicial reform protest movement, creating educational content about Israel’s internal politics for social media. His commentary on Israeli politics has been featured on i24News and ILTV News. Flayton has built an online following of tens of thousands from around the world and launched the podcast We Should All Be Zionists with former Knesset member and author Dr. Einat Wilf in 2023.
Flayton frequently addresses university Jewish communities, Jewish community centers, and summer camps across the US, focusing on campus antisemitism and the immigrant experience in Israel. He is currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Religion and Politics at Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv. This is his first book.
blakeflayton@gmail.com
bflayton.substack.com
KIMBERLY BROOKS, EDITOR, ILLUSTRATOR
Kimberly Brooks is an American artist and author known for her oil paintings addressing subjects of history, memory and identity. Her work has been showcased in Museums and galleries internationally. She has been a featured artist for the National Endowment for the Arts and has several books featuring her work.
Brooks is the author of The New Oil Painting, (Chronicle Books), an illustrated book that illuminates the rich scientific and historical subject of oil painting, now a best-seller in its category.
During the books’ online pandemic-era promotional tour, Brooks confronted a hotbed of antisemitism in response to the 2021 attacks on Israel by Hamas. As a mother of two students in college at the time, Brooks saw a pressing need to dramatically increase young Jews’ literacy on their religion, heritage, Israel and the Middle East. This led to a collaborated with the two brilliant and outspoken experts in the space, Emily Schrader and Blake Flayton.
In addition to her painting practice, Brooks founded and writes for First Person Artist, a monthly artist blog and live broadcast. (FirstPersonArtist.com)