Yfat Barak-Cheney is the WJC's Director of International Affairs and Director of Technology and Human Rights. Through her work, Yfat engages with stakeholders such as governments, international organizations, civil society and tech companies on issues of hate speech and antisemitism online, Holocaust Denial and Distortion online, using technology for education and more.
Yfat earned an LL.M in International Legal Studies from New York University where she was a Transitional Justice Scholar and an International Law and Human Rights Fellow. She also holds an LL.M (with honors) from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where she also received her L.L.B and a B.A in International Relations, receiving an award for outstanding international law student. Yfat clerked with the International Law Department in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel and interned with the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva. She also spent a year as a fellow with the criminal justice department of the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) in New York and several months with the ICTJ Bogotá office. She previously worked with the Ministry of Justice Unit for Combating Human Trafficking and in several NGO’s. Yfat is a co-founder of ALMA – Association for the Promotion of International Humanitarian Law in Israel. She is an International Law instructor for the American Red Cross and a pro-bono attorney for immigration and asylum cases. She is a member of the New York Bar and the Israeli Bar Association.
