A Conversation with Dr. Guila Benchimol & Dr. Alissa Ackerman
Monday, December 9 at 2 pm ET/11 am PT (60 minutes)
Join us for a conversation with Dr. Guila Benchimol & Dr. Alissa Ackerman as we delve deep into their new report, “The Messy Magic: Reflections on Restorative Justice.” This session will highlight the complexities of restorative justice in action, shedding light on its transformative possibilities, as well as challenges in Jewish institutions.
Together, we will explore how restorative justice can promote healing across the Jewish communal landscape and discover behind-the-scenes processes of this work in action. Register here.
Audience: All SRE Network members, partners, and anyone interested in learning more about restorative justice work.
Read the Report: In advance of this program, we encourage participants to read "The Messy Magic: Reflections on Restorative Justice" report. View and download it here.
This program will be recorded. For any questions, please email us.
About the Speakers
Dr. Alissa Ackerman
Dr. Alissa R. Ackerman is Associate Professor and Criminal Justice Department Coordinator at California State University, Fullerton. She is also the co-founder and owner of Ampersands Restorative Justice and organization dedicated to restorative justice for sexual harm. She is a “pracademic” and “survivor scholar” in that she incorporates her academic training, practitioner, and personal experiences with sexual harm into her work.
She holds a PhD in Criminal Justice from the City University of New York. Alissa has dedicated her career to understanding everything she can about sexual offending, the impacts of sexual victimization, and restorative options for those impacted by sexual harm. After participating in a life changing vicarious restorative justice as a survivor, she began building and facilitating processes for others who sought restorative options as part of their own healing. She writes extensively on topics related to sexual harm in blogs and magazine articles and has published over 35 peer-reviewed journal articles. She has authored or edited eight books and served as co-editor on a special edition of the Journal of Sexual Abuse. She co-authored Healing from Sexual Violence: The Case for Vicarious Restorative Justice, with Dr. Jill Levenson in 2019 and her most recent co-edited volume, Survivor Criminology: A Radical Act of Hope, was released in 2022. Alissa is an internationally sought after speaker and trainer, having given over over fifty national and international talks, including a TEDx Talk in 2018. Alissa understands that her restorative values and her Jewish values are one in the same.
Dr. Guila Benchimol
Dr. Guila Benchimol (she/her/hers) is the Senior Advisor on Research and Learning with the SRE Network and was one of the key advisors who guided its launch in early 2018. As a researcher and public educator on sexual violence, she has crafted standards and policies for Jewish workplaces, institutions, and communal spaces and has been invited to address Jewish professionals and clergy across Canada and the US, as well as other faith communities. Guila is also trained in restorative and transformative justice facilitation.
Guila holds a PhD in Sociological Criminology and an MA in Criminology and Criminal Justice Policy from the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. Guila serves as a Research Associate at the Centre for the Study of Social and Legal Responses to Violence, where she works on projects related to homicide and domestic violence deaths, and sits on the board of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP). She was the Director of Judaic Studies at Tiferes Bais Yaakov where she also taught grades 9 through 12. She was also the Managing Director for the National Conference of Synagogue Youth in Canada, where she founded and directed an international camp for high school girls. Guila lives in Toronto and was raised in the Spanish Moroccan Jewish community there which was built by the families who fled Tangiers.
For questions, email info@srenetwork.org.