Contact B'nai B'rith

1120 20th Street NW, Suite 300N Washington, D.C. 20036

info@bnaibrith.org

202-857-6600

B’nai b’rith international
175th Anniversary Celebration
in Washington, D.C.

On Wednesday, April 25 at the Capital Hilton in Washington, D.C., we commemorated B’nai B’rith International’s 175th anniversary by honoring U.S. Rep. Eliot Engel of New York, Rebecca R. Rubin, Founder, President and CEO of Marstel-Day, LLC and Ambassador Richard Schifter, Chairman of the Board of Directors at the American Jewish International Relations Institute.

B’nai B’rith International, the Global Voice of the Jewish Community, is the most widely known Jewish humanitarian, human rights and advocacy organization. B’nai B’rith supports Israel; aids the victims of disaster; improves the lives of senior citizens through housing and advocacy; promotes health initiatives and education; provides youth leadership training; serves community members in need; and fights intolerance around the world. We have been doing this work, and so much more, since our founding in 1843.


Our Honorees

Congressman Eliot L. engel 

Picture

Rep. Eliot L. Engel is the Ranking Member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He also serves on the Energy and Commerce Committee including the Subcommittee on Health, and the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology. He is the founder and Co-Chair of the House Oil and National Security Caucus, which is seeking clean, energy efficient alternatives to America’s over-reliance on oil. He also sits on the Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, the Bipartisan Task Force for Combatting Anti-Semitism, the HIV/AIDS Caucus, the Long Island Sound Caucus, and the Animal Protection Caucus, among others.
Rep. Engel was born in the Bronx on February 18, 1947. He grew up in a city housing project and attended New York City public schools. In 1969, he graduated from Hunter-Lehman College with a B.A. in History and received a Master’s Degree in Guidance and Counseling in 1973 from Herbert H. Lehman College of the City University of New York. In 1987, he received a law degree from New York Law School.

For twelve years prior to his election to Congress, Rep. Engel served in the New York State Assembly (1977-1988), where he chaired the Committee on Alcoholism and Substance Abuse, as well as the Subcommittee on Mitchell-Lama Housing. Prior to that, he was a teacher and guidance counselor in the New York City public school system.

A lifelong resident of the Bronx, Rep. Engel is married to Pat Engel. They have three children.


Rebecca R. Rubin

Picture

Rebecca R. Rubin is the Founder, President, and CEO of Marstel-Day, LLC, an international environmental consultancy that she established in 2002 to provide expertise in the areas of climate, habitat conservation, open space planning, water resource management, resilient infrastructure, energy conservation and sustainability, land use and natural resource conservation issues. The idea-driven, value-based environmental consulting approach she has established at Marstel-Day strives to find common ground among stakeholders across various ecological and social communities, to optimize conservation practices for all parties involved, and to reduce environmental risk to underrepresented and disenfranchised communities domestically and internationally. Her passion is wilderness, and even as the company has grown, it has retained its keen focus on land and water conservation, habitat protection and the delivery of ecological services. She was named by President Obama as a White House Champion of Change for Community Resilience and currently serves on Virginia’s State Air Pollution Control Board by appointment of the Governor. She also currently serves as Chairman of the Board for the National Wildlife Refuge Association, which protects America’s wildlife heritage across 850 million acres and 565 national wildlife refuges in the US. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in history from Harvard College and her Masters in international security from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. She is married to H. Lee Halterman. They have three children – Alex (37), Kimiko (23) and Cadence (6).

Richard Schifter

Picture

Ambassador Richard Schifter ​was born in Vienna, Austria in 1923. He arrived in the United States in 1938 as a refugee. His parents, unable to qualify for a U.S. visa, died in the Holocaust. Living with relatives in New York City, Richard received his bachelor’s degree from the College of the City of New York summa cum laude in 1943. He served in the U.S. Army and thereafter as a civilian in the U.S. Military Government for Germany from 1943 to 1948. After returning to the United States he attended Yale Law School, graduating in 1951. He practiced law with the law firm Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson from 1951 to 1984. From 1984 to 2001 he held positions in the U.S. State Department and the National Security Council (part-time from 1981-1984), including U.S. Representative in the UN Human Rights Commission, Deputy U.S. Representative in the UN Security Council, with the rank of Ambassador, Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, and Special Assistant to the President and Counselor on the National Security Council. From 1959 to 1979 he served as member, Vice President and President of the Maryland State Board of Education. He is now Chairman of the Board of Directors of the American Jewish International Relations Institute.


Event Location Details: 

Picture

The Capital Hilton
1001 16th Street NW, Washington, D.C.