The COVID Episode

Brad Rothschild is a documentary film director and producer. He produced Kinderblock 66: Return to Buchenwald and directed African Exodus about Israel’s African refugees and Tree Man, about the people who come to New York City to sell Christmas trees every holiday season, all of which were feature length. He is currently directing a film about Tamar Manasseh, a community activist in Chicago. His short films cover subjects as: the wrongfully incarcerated, the women leading Montana’s Resistance movement and a group of Israelis and Palestinians who find mutual understanding in their grief. He was formerly a Speechwriter and Director of Communications for the Mission of Israel to the United Nations.



Steven A. Cook is an expert on Arab and Turkish politics as well as U.S.-Middle East policy. Cook is the author of False Dawn: Protest, Democracy, and Violence in the New Middle East; The Struggle for Egypt: From Nasser to Tahrir Square, which won the Washington Institute for Near East Policy's gold medal in 2012; and Ruling But Not Governing: The Military and Political Development in Egypt, Algeria, and Turkey. Cook is a columnist at Foreign Policy magazine. He has also published widely in international affairs journals, opinion magazines, and newspapers, and he is a frequent commentator on radio and television.