Young Professionals Advisory Council

Josh Blustein is an associate at Sidley Austin LLP in Miami, Florida. He is a graduate of University of Chicago Law School and Johns Hopkins University. Prior to the bar, Josh worked in consulting and was a Krauthammer and a Tikvah Legal Fellow. He is passionate about history, publishing original research on the economics of the Holocaust.

Tal Fortgang is a lawyer and adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute. He also holds a fellowship at the Jewish Coalition for Religious Liberty. He was previously a clerk on the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, and will soon clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He is also a widely published author, with op-eds, essays, and book reviews in the Wall Street Journal, Commentary, National Review, and many other publications. He has also taught topics in law, political theory, literary analysis, and religion to students from middle school to college. Tal holds an AB in Politics and Certificate in Judaic Studies from Princeton and earned his JD from NYU Law.

Harry Halem is a military analyst based in London. He is Washington Fellow at Yorktown Institute, Senior Research Fellow at Policy Exchange, and a European Leadership Network Young Generation Leader on Euro-Atlantic Security. He holds an MA (Hons) in Philosophy and International Relations from the University of St Andrews, and MSc (Distinction) from the London School of Economics in Political Theory, and is a doctoral candidate in International Relations at the London School of Economics. Mr Halem's research interests include the development of net assessment, the intellectual history of operational art, the future of combat, and the role of military analysis in alliance politics.

Josh Halpern is a litigator at DLA Piper, where he focuses on high-stakes commercial disputes at every stage of litigation. Prior to joining DLA, Josh clerked for Justice Neil Gorsuch of the United States Supreme Court. Earlier in his career, Josh served as a Bristow Fellow in the US Office of the Solicitor General, where he drafted briefs to the US Supreme Court and represented the US government before the federal courts of appeals. Josh has also served as a Fellow and Lecturer at Harvard Law School, where he taught and wrote about the constitutionality of anti-BDS laws. More recently, after clerking for the US Supreme Court, Josh founded the Israel Legal Fellowship, a program that brings outgoing US Supreme court law clerks and federal judges to Israel to study the country’s legal and political institutions. At the start of his career, Josh clerked for judges on US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and the Fifth Circuit. He earned his JD from Harvard Law School, magna cum laude, where he was an editor on the Harvard Law review, and his BA from Yeshiva University.

Samuel Helyar is a PhD candidate and Presidential Scholar at Boston College, focusing on classical, early modern, and American political philosophy. His current research focuses on Plato's Republic in order to understand the ends and limits of civic education and the place of rational inquiry in civic life. Samuel began his relationship with Tikvah as a Krauthammer Fellow, and his writing on education and modern psychology in the course of that work was published in Plough Magazine. He took his Bachelors in liberal arts from St. John's College, and in his ongoing work with The Tikvah Fund is proud to support the continuation of meaningful liberal arts education in this country.

Eliora Lubin is a Senior Vice President at BNY Mellon, where she has advanced strategic initiatives in capital markets and digital assets. Prior to that Eliora was a Professional Staff Member on the Senate Banking Committee, overseeing legislation at the nexus of finance and national security. Before this, at DoD, Eliora served as the Egypt Country Director in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Middle East Policy. In that role, she managed $1.3 billion in foreign military financing for Egypt, strengthened bilateral defense relations, led an interagency team, and advanced policy on key issues related to the Red Sea, Israel, the Abraham Accords, and countering Russian and Chinese influence in the region. Earlier in her career, Eliora worked on national security issues at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and UN Watch. She is currently a Senior Industry Fellow at the Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy, an NSN fellow at FDD, and a Capstone Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. A graduate of the University of Chicago, Eliora is fluent in Persian and Hebrew.

Zach Kessel is a speechwriter in the office of Senator Katie Britt. He is a former William F. Buckley Jr. Fellow in Political Journalism at National Review, where he covered antisemitism on college campuses after Hamas's October 7 attack against Israel. He has written on statements and rallies supporting terrorism, unchecked antisemitism within higher education, and the identitarian Left's capture of American institutions. During his time at National Review, Zach also reported from the ground at the encampments at Columbia University and NYU. He has appeared on national television and on podcasts to discuss his reporting and the state of higher education in the United States and has participated in panel discussions at universities and at the 2023 Jewish Leadership Conference. In addition to National Review, his writing has appeared in publications including the Dispatch, the Washington Free Beacon, and the Washington Post. Zach is a former Krauthammer Fellow, Beren Summer Fellow, and Collegiate Forum member with the Tikvah Fund.

J.J. Kimche is a PhD candidate at Harvard University, where he specialises in the intersection between European and Jewish Intellectual history during the post-Enlightenment era. He received his undergraduate education at Shalem College, Jerusalem, where he double-majored in Western philosophy and Jewish thought. Prior to that, he studied at Yeshivat Har Etzion and completed his military service in the 101st Division of the IDF’s Paratroopers Brigade. J.J. has been involved in studying and teaching Jewish ideas throughout his entire adult life. He has taught Jewish and Western thought in various religious and academic institutions, including a three-year tenure as the Orthodox educator at MIT Hillel. He has also taught courses at several universities, including Harvard, Brandeis, Case Western Reserve, and Gratz College. J.J.'s popular writings have been published in the Wall Street Journal, First Things, and City Journal. His articles have appeared in leading academic journals, and he currently serves as an editorial associate at the Harvard Theological Review. A writer and ghostwriter of numerous books on Jewish thought, J.J.'s first academic book is due to be published in November 2024. J.J. may be found conversing with other scholars on the Podcast of Jewish Ideas, which he hosts.

Kennedy Lee is chief of staff for the international bestselling author and journalist Douglas Murray. She was previously research associate and program manager with the Keystone Defense Initiative and Center on Europe and Eurasia at Hudson Institute. Ms. Lee assisted Senior Fellow Rebeccah Heinrichs with the Keystone Defense Initiative, as well as Senior Fellows Peter Rough and Luke Coffey with a focus on Europe and Eurasia. Ms. Lee is also a former fellow at the Forum for American Leadership, where she helped write briefs and policy analysis on questions of national security, foreign policy, and American global leadership for elected officials and candidates for office. She has taught various courses for the Tikvah Online Academy and Tikvah’s elite high school fellowships. Ms. Lee is also the consulting editor of Tikvah’s Solomon Journal and a contributing editor with Providence Magazine. Her writing has been featured in a variety of outlets including National Review, Law & Liberty, and Real Clear Defense.

Jacob Leon is a Legislative Correspondent in the Office of U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and is in his second year of the Public interest Fellowship. Prior to his work on Capitol Hill, he was a policy analyst at the China Economic and Strategy Initiative. Jacob graduated in 2023 from Washington University in St. Louis summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, where he received the Arnold J. Lien Prize for the outstanding graduate in political science. In 2022, he received a National Defense Fellowship from the Ronald Reagan Institute and the Alexander Hamilton Society.

Alexander Raikin is a Visiting Fellow in Bioethics and American Democracy Program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. His research focuses on the dignity of human life and end-of-life issues, especially on its impact on the field of medicine and broader ethical questions of social belonging. His writing has been widely cited in major publications such as The Atlantic and the New York Times and in academic journals in the United States, Canada, UK, and France. He wrote cover stories for National Review and The New Atlantis, while his other bylines include City Journal, Plough, and the Washington Free Beacon. Raikin frequently speaks on national radio and on major podcasts. Last year, Raikin was an inaugural Richard John Neuhaus Fellow at the Public Interest Fellowship and EPPC. He was a Tikvah Summer Fellow and a Killam scholar with Fulbright at American University. He graduated from Carleton University with a bachelor’s degree in public policy.

Zineb Riboua is a research fellow and program manager of Hudson Institute’s Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East. She specializes in China’s involvement in the Middle East, North African affairs, and Israeli-Arab relations. Ms. Riboua’s pieces and commentary have been published in the Wall Street Journal, the American Conservative, Foreign Policy, the Jerusalem Post, Tablet Magazine, and other outlets. Ms. Riboua is also an associate at the Association for Global Political Thought at Harvard University. Ms. Riboua holds a master's of public policy from the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University and a certificate in international relations and politics from Magdalene College, Cambridge University. She did her undergraduate studies in France, where she attended French preparatory classes and HEC Paris’ Grande Ecole program. Ms. Riboua is a native of Morocco, and she speaks Arabic and French.

Daniel J. Samet is the George P. Shultz Fellow at the Ronald Reagan Institute. Daniel previously worked for Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR), the Atlantic Council, and the National Endowment for Democracy. He has also worked for Douglas Murray. Daniel has been a fellow at Johns Hopkins SAIS, the Rumsfeld Foundation, and the Tikvah Fund. Daniel holds a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin, an M.A. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a B.A. magna cum laude from Davidson College, where he was initiated into Phi Beta Kappa. His writing has appeared in Commentary, National Review, and The Wall Street Journal, among others. He is the author of a forthcoming book on U.S. policy toward Israel.

Jacob Viviano, a Michigan native, is a recent graduate of the University of Michigan's Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, where he studied Foreign Policy and National Security. After graduating, Jacob was a Tikvah Beren Fellow, where he completed an internship in national security for Senator Tom Cotton’s office. Later, Jacob served as special assistant to Ambassador Ron Dermer. Since then, Jacob has worked on several campaigns, most recently as Iowa Political Operations Director for Gov. Ron DeSantis. Jacob currently is serving in the DeSantis administration in legislative affairs.

Mariam Wahba is a research analyst at FDD focused on Egypt and minorities in the Middle East. Previously, she served as the Associate Director of Communications at FDD. Previously, Mariam was the associate director of advocacy with the Philos Project, a Hertog political science fellow, and a policy associate at In Defense of Christians. She graduated from Fordham University with a BA in Middle East studies, Arabic, and Jewish studies. Born and raised in Egypt, she is a Coptic Christian and an advocate for the persecuted church. Mariam is also the co-founder of American-ish, a digital platform aimed at highlighting ethno-religious minorities of the Middle East and promoting American values.