Yeshivat Frisch’s senior curriculum encourages students to take an active role in their education, choosing from a variety of specialized electives in several disciplines. Last week, students in Elana Lefkovitz’s Crime and Corruption class (part of the history department) experienced two excellent guest speaker sessions. One featured Dr. Erica Borghard and Major Dr. Shawn Lonergan. Dr. Borghard is an alumna of Frisch, and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, a think tank which helps to develop American foreign policy. She is also the senior director of the U.S. Cyberspace Solarium Commission, a bipartisan congressional commission which works to develop a comprehensive national strategy regarding how to defend the U.S. in cyberspace. Major Dr. Lonergan is the director of Cybersecurity and Privacy at PxC and a cyber officer in the US Army 75th Innovation Command. They spoke about cyberspace, cyberwarfare, threat actors and particularly the recent cyber attack (Solarwinds). Students also learned about other famous cyber attacks including Stuxnet, Ukraine Black Energy and the 2016 Russian election interference.

The other Crime and Corruption guest speaker was Orrie Levy, an associate at McKool Smith where he practices commercial litigation. Prior to joining the firm, Levy was a law clerk on the United States District court for the Southern District of New York, and before clerking he served as an assistant district attorney in the Appeals Bureau of the Bronx County District Attorney’s office. He spoke about his experiences as a prosecutor and about how the criminal justice system works—from the arrest to trial.