Staff Bios

Brooke Goldstein - Founder and Director of CRI

Brooke Goldstein is a human rights attorney based out of New York City and an award-winning filmmaker. Brooke is the 2007 recipient of the E. Nathaniel Gates Award for Outstanding Public Advocacy, is currently an associate fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, was formally an adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute and served as the Director of the Legal Project as well as in-house counsel at the Middle East Forum from 2007-2009. Brooke currently serves as director of the Lawfare Project, a not for profit dedicated to raising awareness about the abuse of the law and legal systems for political or military means.

The issue of spreading awareness and upholding human rights, namely the child's right to life and to an education and media free of incitement to hate and to kill themselves, is of primary concern to Brooke and she works as a filmmaker, activist and legal advocate to that end. Brooke has made several media appearances including on FOX News, CNN, the John Batchelor Show, WABC News Talk Radio, CBN, TVE (of Spain), CBN, RAI (of Italy), NYC TV (local ch.25), Time Warner's "Faith to Faith" television show (Brooke's episode won the Telly Award for Outstanding Programming), and has been featured in the New York Sun, The American Spectator, The Counter Terrorist Magazine, The New York Daily News, the Jewish Weekly newspaper, the Alaska Daily News, the Canadian Jewish News, Jewcy.com, USINFO, Counter Terrorist Magazine, and Swindle Magazine.

Brooke has been invited to brief government officials at the U.S. State Department, the White House, the UK Parliament, and at U.S. Central Command Seminars, and she has visited U.S. military schools and conferences to speak on issues of asymmetric warfare and human rights. Brooke is a seasoned public speaker and lecturer and has taught seminars at various schools including the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, New York University, Berkeley University, and Stanford University.

As an effort to facilitate public awareness and fruitful discussion of human rights violations against children ignored by the mainstream media, Brooke co-founded A2B Film Productions Inc., a Canadian-based independent documentary film production company focused on creating films that expose and explore such issues.

Filming the documentary "Martyr," Brooke ventured into the West Bank and at great risk personally interviewed active and armed members of the Al-Aqsa, Fatah and Hamas terrorist groups, including Israel's most wanted abject killer Zacharia Zubeidi (former leader of the Al -Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in Jenin), as well as families of suicide bombers, members of the Palestinian Authority, children's television programmers at PA TV, Palestinian children living in the West Bank, teachers at Palestinian elementary schools, child psychologists, and children imprisoned for attempting suicide missions or otherwise participating in armed activity against the IDF. Brooke has a fresh, on the ground perspective of why youth become suicide bombers, how those close to them react to these decisions, how communities encourage this kind of violent extremism, and what we can do to prevent this phenomenon from spreading.

If you would like to contact Brooke or arrange for a speaking engagement, please send an email to her at goldstein@childrensrightsinstitute.org

Supna Zaidi - Deputy Director

Supna Zaidi is assistant director of Islamist Watch at the Middle East Forum. She is also editor-in-chief of Muslim World Today, which was the first American Muslim newspaper to fight against Islamism's encroachment in America. Ms. Zaidi received a B.A. in political theory and a B.A. in history of the Near East and Religion from the University of California, San Diego (1999) and J.D. from New York Law School (2003). After graduation from law school, Ms. Zaidi practiced family, deportation and asylum immigration in New York and New Jersey for three years before transitioning into policy and national security issues.

Supna Zaidi is the daughter of Tashbih Sayyed, a renown reformer in the Muslim world, close friend and supporter of the late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, founder of the Muslim World Today as well as the Council for Democracy and Tolerance. Tashbih was also a liberal journalist and general manager of Pakistan Television in Pakistan in the 70s. Zaidi's family was forced to leave Pakistan after the Islamification policies of Zia ul-Haq.

While living in California, Zaidi and her family experienced marginalization and death threats from Islamists for publicly expressing pro-Israeli, pro-secular views and for being critical of the anti-democratic politics in Pakistan.

Zaidi considers herself a very middle of the road American Muslim. She is liberal in terms of abortion, gay rights, etc., but believes that moderates and liberals have got the "war on terror" completely wrong as they have allowed themselves to be swayed by Islamist manipulation of notions of multiculturalism and cultural relativism, while further pushing their agenda in Muslim and American communities further.

Zaidi has published in the American Spectator, the Middle East Quarterly, Pajamas Media, Frontpage Magazine and has a weekly column in Muslim World Today.

Email: SZAidi@childrensrightsinstitute.org

Aaron Meyer - Director of Research

Aaron Eitan Meyer is Research Director of the Lawfare Project and Legal Correspondent for the Terror Finance Blog, and formerly assistant director of the Legal Project at the Middle East Forum. He received his B.A. from New School University, where his studies focused on Middle East politics and history, and his J.D. from Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center.

In addition to the Terror Finance Blog, Mr. Meyer's work has appeared in the Washington Post Online, Washington Times, American Spectator, Counter Terrorist magazine, ILSA Journal of International & Comparative Law, and the Legal Project blog.

Mr. Meyer has long-standing interests in legal and military theory and history, cyber-law and counterterrorism. In 2009, he presented a paper at the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa's second annual conference, on the panel "Issues in Conflict and Diplomacy."

Email: Meyer@childrensrightsinstitute.org

Rebecca Wainstein - Director of Marketing and Publicity

Rebecca Wainstein serves as Director of Marketing and Publicity for the Children's Rights Institute. She is currently a Client Training Executive at Thomson Reuters. Before her employment with the news agency, Rebecca graduated with honors from New York University with a Bachelor of Science in Communication Studies and a concentration in Marketing and Media Studies. Rebecca plans to pursue her MBA in the near future.

Jordana Gutman - Secretary

Jordana was born and raised in New York. She received her B.A. from the University of Michigan in 2002 and her J.D. from The Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in 2005. Jordana is admitted to practice law in New York, New Jersey and Florida. In 2006 she founded The Law Office of Jordana M. Gutman, P.C., specializing in Landlord Tenant Litigation, Residential and Commercial Real Estate, and Small Businesses.

Elisa Rojas - Research Assistant

Elisa Rojas is a graduate from the University of Iowa with a B.A. in Political Science and International Studies with an emphasis on European Studies. She is pursuing a legal degree at New York Law School and will graduate with a J.D. in 2011. Elisa has previously worked with the University of Iowa Center for Human Rights and continues to pursue her interest in international law and human rights law with her work as a research assistant at both the Children's Rights Institute and the Lawfare Project.