Eliyahu Federman

Early life

From ages 14 to 17 Federman helped reveal a cover-up of his father’s tragic murder by members of a SWAT team in Kern County California. In 2003, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a District Court ruling that the police used excessive force.

Federman is also the nephew of the famous American comedian, actor, author, and comedy writer Wayne Federman. He is brothers with 1SaleADay founder Ben Federman.

Nazi protest

In 2006, while attending Marquette University, Federman organized a protest urging the Office of Special Investigation (OSI) division of the U.S. Department of Justice to launch an investigation of the immigration status of Ted Junker – a former SS officer who built a shrine to commemorate Adolf Hitler’s legacy.

Law school

In 2008, during his first year of law school, Federman received a Charles H. Revson grant. He used the grant to intern for Ronald L. Kuby, with whom he worked on a Second Circuit Court of Appeals case. Federman graduated law school in 2010.

Federman served in 2009-2010 as executive articles editor of the New York City Law Review, which is published by the City University of New York School of Law. He has published several articles—among them, article contributions to several death-penalty-related law review articles published by his law school professor Jeffrey L. Kirchmeier.

1SaleADay

He currently serves as the vice president of 1SaleADay, the largest independently owned daily deal website. In 2010, via the Internet’s Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP), he worked on behalf of 1SaleADay to win a protracted international trademark dispute with an Australian company. The World Trademark Review featured this case to highlight the dangers associated with informal licensing of intellectual property.

In 2011 Internet Retailer and the Examiner featured Federman's social media strategy of treating the 1SaleADay fan base as personal friends, being transparent with consumers, reflecting on current events instead of just promoting products, and promoting fund-raising, most notably in the case of the Japanese tsunami and other natural disasters.

ABC News later covered his tactic of allowing 1SaleaDay employees to use in-house social media while working (Yammer), and how doing so increased productivity.

Gag order controversy

In 2010 the New York Times published a letter that Federman wrote challenging a gag order issued by the Beth Din in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights section, which prohibited members of the Lubavitcher community from speaking with the police or media. Federman’s letter engendered both support and criticism within the Crown Heights Community.

Sexual abuse awareness

Federman advocated an open discussion on sexual abuse in the Jewish community, maintaining that that obligation to protect the innocent from being hurt supersedes the claim that discussing sexual abuse will give the community a “bad name.” Federman highlighted that children who are raised without knowledge of their bodies or intimacy issue are "more vulnerable to abuse" and less likely to speak about it. In a JPost Op-Ed, Federman praised the Crown Heights Beis Din for defying the culture of silence by encouraging victims to report sexual abuse to the police.

Know-Your-Rights

Federman argued in an Op-Ed that an educational seminar teaching the African-American and Jewish communities about their rights and responsibilities when stopped, questioned, ticketed or searched by the police - would enhance police-community relations in Crown Heights. In response to a question from organizer Federman at a Community Counsel meeting, Deputy Inspector Peter Simonetti of the local 71st Crown Heights Precinct endorsed the Know-Your-Rights seminar. The presenters at the seminar included Federman, Attorneys Norman Siegel and Earl Ward, District Attorney counsel Lance P. Ogiste along with Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries and Senator Eric Adams. The Jewish Press reported that the seminar was held to address efforts of some to quell members of the community from complaining about the police, as well as to give citizens a greater appreciation of their constitutional rights.

Voting rights

In 2011, the New York Times chronicled Federman's challenge of the male-only voting policy of a social service agency in the Jewish Brooklyn Crown Heights Community - where he argued that the policy may be unconstitutional and has no basis in Jewish law. In 2010 The Jewish Daily Forward also published an article that was critical of the male-only voting policy. The Forward also published an Op-Ed of Federman's reflections on combating the culture of silence in the context of women's voting rights.