Speakers & Organizers   

Dr. Richard Benkin successfully won the release of Bangladeshi journalist,  Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury.  This pro-Israeli, anti-jihadist Muslim was arrested and tortured after writing articles exposing Islamist attempts to take over the world’s third largest Muslim country.  Benkin is currently fighting to save Choudhury from a show trial that could result in the death penalty.  Since then, Benkin has become a frequent radio guest and contributor to publications worldwide about the Choudhury case, intelligence matters, and the war on terror.  He has also published and spoken extensively about Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, Hasidism, the Middle East, and other topics about Jewish culture and history.  Together with Choudhury, he is working to bring the people of the Muslim world information about Israel and the Jewish people that is being withheld from them and realize the goal of real interfaith understanding.  Active in various Jewish and business adventures, Benkin has spoken before Jewish and Christian groups, and has been heard on Israel National Radio.  He recently completed, The Battle Beneath Jerusalem, a novel synthethizing his extensive research on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount.  His Book of Miriam retells the ancient Exodus saga with Miriam as its hero.  Named Special Advisor to the Intelligence Summit on Bangladeshi affairs, he is working on a book about the terrorist threat in non-Arab Muslim Asia.

Benkin received his doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania in 1976, and served on several university faculties.  He published numerous professional articles on ethnicity, Jewish history and culture, and his theory of social adaptations, and a textbook.  He subsequently left academia and worked as a freelance writer and was involved in various community and business ventures.  He is currently an analyst in the field of workers compensation, working with some of the largest business operations in the United States.  He also serves on the Boards of several interfaith and other organizations.  He remains an active freelance writer, and is the US Correspondent for several Asian newspapers.  Benkin is married and has one daughter.