Richard Foltin
Richard Foltin served as AJC Director of National and Legislative Affairs from 2009 - 2018.
Richard Foltin is Director of National and Legislative Affairs in AJC’s Office of Government and International Affairs in Washington, D.C. Foltin is responsible for directing AJC policy and legislative activities in the areas of religious liberty, civil rights, immigration, and combating anti-Israel boycott efforts and domestic antisemitism. Before assuming this position in 2009, he served in the D.C. office as Legislative Director and Counsel. Foltin began his AJC career as Director of Governmental Affairs and Associate Legal Director in the New York headquarters. Prior to coming to AJC, he was an associate with the litigation department of Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, a New York law firm. He serves on the governing council of the American Bar Association’s Section of Civil Rights and Social Justice, and as co-chair of the section’s Religious Freedom Committee. He is also a member of the Committee on Religious Liberty currently convened by the Religious Freedom Center of the Newseum Institute, and serves on the Center’s advisory board. Foltin has testified before Congressional committees and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and often writes and speaks on current issues for the AJC membership and the general public. In 2009, he was honored with the Dorothy Height Coalition Building Award by SALDEF (the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund), and in 2013 he was elected to the Fellows of the American Bar Foundation. A native of New York City and a child of Holocaust survivors, Foltin received his B.A. magna cum laude with honors in political science from New York University and his J.D. cum laude from Harvard Law School.