Judge Dennis Davis, Professor David Peimer, and Elisha Wiesel
In Conversation

Dennis Davis is a judge of the High Court of South Africa and judge president of the Competition Appeals Court of South Africa. He has held professorial appointments at the University of Cape Town and University of the Witwatersrand, as well as numerous visiting appointments at Cambridge, Harvard, New York University, and others. He has authored eleven books, including Lawfare: Judging Politics in South Africa.

David Peimer is a Professor of Literature, Film and Theatre in the UK. He has worked for the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, New York University (Global Division) and was a Fulbright Scholar at Columbia University. Born in South Africa, David has won numerous awards for playwriting and directing. He has most recently directed Dame Janet Suzman in his own play, Joanna’s Story, at London Jewish Book Week. He has published numerous books, including Armed Response: Plays from South Africa and the digital book Theatre in the Camps. He is on the board of the Pinter Centre (London), and has been involved with the Mandela Foundation, Vaclav Havel Foundation and directed a range of plays at Mr Havel’s Prague theatre.

Elisha Wiesel, son of Marion and Eli Wiesel, is a recovering Wall Street executive. Since retiring from a twenty-five-year financial markets career at Goldman Sachs at the end of 2019, he served in 2020 as one of the lead technologists in Mike Bloomberg’s presidential campaign. In his most recent board position at Good Shepherd Services, Elisha raised millions of dollars for New York’s neediest by convening “Midnight Madness,” where hundreds of finance professionals stayed up all night solving elaborate puzzles on the city streets. When his father passed, Elisha realized how many others missed his voice––and so, when opportunities for impact arise, Elisha shares his father’s message and continues his legacy by standing up for persecuted communities. In the last few years, Elisha has spoken at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum about the need to protect the LGBTQ community; shining a light while speaking at Auschwitz on the plight of Syrian refugees being denied Western asylum; written for the Financial Times about the urgency of upholding DACA; and taken his son to peacefully march for Black Lives. Elisha’s words and actions mark him as an emerging fighter against poverty, advocate for an opportunity, and student of Jewish continuity.