Friday, December 6, 2019 | Noon | Venue Six10
610 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL
We are pleased to honor Richard Goldwasser for his commitment to J Street. From 2011-2017, Richard served on J Street’s national board of directors. He has traveled with J Street delegations to Israel and the West Bank, meeting with both Israeli and Palestinian government officials, Knesset members from opposition parties, and human rights activists. During the Gaza war in 2014, he led a mission to Israel to express solidarity with Israelis and Palestinians. He currently serves as chair of J Street’s Chicago chapter.
Outside of J Street, Richard is a partner with the Chicago law firm of Schoenberg Finkel Newman & Rosenberg, LLC. He began his legal career with clerkships with the Hon. Meir Shamgar, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Israel, and the Hon. Dom J. Rizzi, Justice of the Illinois Appellate Court. Richard focuses his practice on complex commercial litigation and civil and criminal appeals. He has presented and argued cases before the Illinois Supreme Court, the Illinois Appellate Court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth and Seventh Circuits, and other state appellate and supreme courts throughout the country. He has obtained reversals of criminal convictions based on deprivations of Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights.
This year’s keynote speaker will be David Axelrod, American political strategist and commentator and the former chief strategist and senior advisor to President Barack Obama. Axelrod currently serves as the founding director of the University of Chicago’s non-partisan Institute of Politics and as a senior political commentator for CNN. He is the host of The Axe Files, a top-rated podcast featuring in depth conversations with public figures across the political spectrum. A televised version of the show airs monthly on CNN. He also hosts the Hacks on Tap podcast with longtime Republican strategist Mike Murphy. A former political writer for the Chicago Tribune, Axelrod produced media strategy and advertising for 150 campaigns across the U.S., culminating in President Obama’s historic elections. Axelrod is also the author of The New York Times best-selling memoir, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics.