Against the backdrop of continuing hate crimes targeting Jews, including violence and vandalism in Chicago and neo-Nazi marches in Florida, the Simon Wiesenthal Center met with FBI officials from the counterterrorism and criminal divisions at FBI headquarters in Washington, DC.
Photo credits: L-R at FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C.: Luis Quesada, Assistant Director Criminal Investigative Division; Rabbi Abraham Cooper, SWC Associate Dean & Director, Global Social Action Agenda; George Beach, Assistant Director Office of Partner Engagement; and Jay Greenberg, Deputy Assistant Director Criminal Divsion
Wiesenthal Officials urged the creation of a special FBI Taskforce Against Anti-Semitism and the adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance - IHRA definition of anti-Semitism by federal law enforcement.
During the meeting, as well as another with a senior official of Homeland Security, the SWC offered to expand its Tools for Tolerance® training to focus on the varied strains of anti-Semitism currently manifesting in the US, in Europe and on social media.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center will update the public on these and other incidents in the days and weeks to come. Please support Wiesenthal's work so the fight against anti-Semitism and hate in the US and around the world can continue.
Simon Wiesenthal, a survivor of the Nazi death camps, dedicated his life to documenting the crimes of the Holocaust and to hunting down the perpetrators still at large. "When history looks back," Wiesenthal explained, "I want people to know the Nazis weren’t able to kill millions of people and get away with it." His work stands as a reminder and a warning for future generations.
In November 1977, the Simon Wiesenthal Center was founded. Today, together with its world renowned Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles and the New York Tolerancenter, it is an international center for Holocaust remembrance, the defense of human rights and the Jewish people. With offices throughout the world, the Wiesenthal Center carries on the continuing fight against bigotry and antisemitism and pursues an active agenda of related contemporary issues. "I have received many honors in my lifetime," said Mr. Wiesenthal. "When I die, these honors will die with me. But the Simon Wiesenthal Center will live on as my legacy."