The Combat Antisemitism Movement tapped constitutional lawyer Alyza Lewin on Monday to lead its revamped U.S. affairs department, Jewish Insider has learned.  

Lewin steps into CAM’s newly established role of president of U.S. affairs following eight years at the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, where as president she spearheaded legal and advocacy efforts protecting the civil rights of Jewish students and employees nationwide.

At CAM, Lewin, an attorney who co-founded Lewin & Lewin, LLP,  will “help broader audiences recognize and understand the antisemitism that’s plaguing the United States today,” she told JI. 

The six-year-old advocacy organization “has developed relationships with so many communities and audiences that need to understand how to recognize contemporary antisemitism,” said Lewin. 

In her new position, Lewin will oversee coordination and engagement with those groups. “These broader audiences need to understand the tools at their disposal and utilize them to address discrimination that’s taking place,” she said, adding that she plans to educate about the implementation of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism. 

“That could be on the local level,” she said, pointing to CAM programs that work with mayors, state legislatures, state attorneys general and law enforcement officials. 

“They [also] have a program that works with religious leaders and Christian pastors, and they work together with many Jewish organizations seeking guidance,” continued Lewin.  

“It’s now time to help broader audiences in society see and understand the difference between a good faith political debate of Israel, which we want to encourage, [versus] the exclusion, vilification and violence that we’re really starting to see rise targeting Jews,” said Lewin. 

“I am incredibly proud that Alyza Lewin — among the foremost authorities on antisemitism in the US, with decades of unmatched experience safeguarding Jewish civil rights — will now, as President of CAM’s U.S. Affairs, employ her personal expertise and vision in engaging American decision-makers so that they can better implement effective solutions to address the challenges facing American Jewry,” CAM CEO Sacha Roytman said in a statement.  

While she formally assumes the position on Monday, Lewin spent the past week in Israel with three separate CAM delegations of American elected officials. These included a mission of six state attorneys general, a delegation of 19 state legislators and a trade mission with Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen, a Republican.

“We’re working to advance a civil rights movement for Jews and trying to ensure that the laws in the United States are used to protect Jews,” Lewin told JI. “Not only [protection] from discrimination that may target them on the basis of religious belief, practice, dress, observance, but also that protects them when they say the Jewish people’s ancestral homeland is Israel.”