Leslie Gilbert-Lurie

Leslie Gilbert-Lurie, a writer, lawyer, teacher, and child advocate, is a board member and Immediate Past President of the Los Angeles County Board of Education. She is a founding member and past president of the Alliance for Children's Rights, a non-profit legal rights organization for indigent children, co-chair of the education committee for the Los Angeles Music Center, and a board member of Sierra Canyon School and New Visions Foundation. She recently served on the mayor's task force charged with developing a new cultural plan for the City of Los Angeles. Gilbert-Lurie, with her mother Rita Lurie, is the co-author of the mother/daughter memoir Bending Toward the Sun (Harper).

As the head of comedy and NBC Productions at NBC Gilbert-Lurie spoke to many gatherings of advertisers and the media. As the President of the Los Angeles County Board of Education and the chair of the Alliance for Children's Rights board, she has spoken at numerous education events, graduations, and large charity dinners, in addition to conferences, organizations, and events for children's rights, education and the Holocaust. Gilbert-Lurie has also spoken at many Los Angeles schools on the subject of the Holocaust.

A decade-long collaboration between mother and daughter, Bending Toward the Sun reveals how deeply the Holocaust still lives in the hearts and minds of survivors, and even extends into the lives of their descendants. Rita and Leslie bring together the stories of three generations of women -- mother, daughter, and granddaughter Mikaela -- to understand the traumatic legacy that unites them all. In her unique memoir and presentations, Gilbert-Lurie offers an incredible emotional and historical sweep, sure to touch anyone who has ever sought reassurance and hope following a traumatic experience.

Previously, Gilbert-Lurie spent close to a decade as an executive at NBC, where, at various times, she oversaw NBC Productions, Comedy, wrote television episodes, and co-founded a new NBC in-house production company, Lurie-Horwits productions. As a lawyer, she worked briefly at the law firm of Manatt, Phelps, Rothenberg and Tunney and served as a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Law Clerk.

Gilbert-Lurie is a graduate of UCLA and UCLA School of Law. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, son, daughter, and step-son.

The Holocaust and Its Relevance in the World Today

Bending Toward the Sun: The Mother Daughter Bond

How Trauma is Transmitted from Generation to Generation

The State of Education in Our Country Today