Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on May 15, 2014

President Barack Obama is presented with the Ambassador for Humanity Award by filmmaker Steven Spielberg at the USC Shoah Foundations 20th anniversary gala in Los Angeles on May 7. Photo by Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

Recalling the horrors of the Holocaust, President Barack Obama urged nations to fight growing anti-Semitism and threats against Israel in his remarks on May 7 to 1,200 supporters of the University of Southern California Shoah Foundation. Obama called for confronting a rising tide of anti-Semitism around the world.

We see attacks on Jews in the streets of major Western cities, public places marred by swastikas, he continued. From some foreign governments we hear the worst kind of anti-Semitic scapegoating.

At the same time, Its up to us to speak out against rhetoric that threatens the existence of the Jewish homeland and to sustain Americas unshakable commitment to Israels security, Obama declared to loud applause.

The gala at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza marked the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Shoah Foundation by filmmaker Steven Spielberg, following the international success of his Holocaust movie, Schindlers List.

Spielberg presented the Ambassador for Humanity Award to Obama at the event, which raised $4 million for the foundations work in compiling video testimonies of 52,000 Holocaust survivors, liberators and other witnesses. The work is continuing with testimonies from the last survivors of the 1915 genocide of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire and of the Japanese massacre of Chinese in Nanjing in 1937. More recent testimonies are being collected from survivors of mass killings in Cambodia and Rwanda.

Stressing the importance of these testimonies collected by the Shoah Foundation, Obama said, The purpose of memory is not simply to preserve the past, it is to protect the future. We can teach our children the hazards of tribalism. We can teach our children to speak out against the casual slur.

Bruce Springsteen, the evenings musical entertainment, earned a standing ovation from an audience sprinkled with Hollywoods heaviest hitters for his renditions of The Promised Land and Dancing in the Dark.

TV host and comedian Conan OBrien served as the evenings host and suggested that given the massive traffic jams caused by security for the presidents visit, perhaps he could just send his message by Skype the next time around. Praising the Shoah Foundations work, OBrien deadpanned that it was recording evidence of intolerance long before Donald Sterlings girlfriend.

Even with the array of eloquent speakers, they were almost upstaged by Celina Biniaz, who was the youngest person included on Schindlers famous list.

Read the rest here:
Moving and Shaking: Obama at Shoah Foundation, Righteous Among the Nations Award given

Category: Jewish American Heritage Month
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