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Obama urges fight against global tide of anti-Semitism

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May 8, 2014

Recalling the horrors of the Holocaust, President Barack Obama urged nations to fight growing anti-Semitism and threats against Israel.

Speaking Wednesday night (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, “it’s up to us to speak out against rhetoric that threatens the existence of the Jewish homeland and to sustain America’s unshakeable commitment to Israel’s 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-themed movie “Schindler’s List.”

President Barack Obama is presented with the Ambassador for Humanity Award by movie producer Steven Spielberg at the USC Shoah Foundation 20th Anniversary Gala in Los Angeles on May 7. Photo by Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

Spielberg presented the Ambassador for Humanity Award to Obama at the event, which raised $4 million for the foundation’s 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 killing in Cambodia and Rwanda.

Stressing the importance of the testimony from survivors collected by the Shoah Foundation, Obama said, “The purpose of memory is not simply to preserve the past, it is to protect the future.”

Noting the foundation’s work with high school students, Obama observed, “We can teach our children the hazards of tribalism. We can teach our children to speak out against the casual slur.”

While Obama was the evening’s headliner, other speakers and entertainers included Spielberg, who noted that the key to preventing future genocides was to “never just stand by.”

Bruce Springsteen earned a standing ovation from an audience sprinkled with Hollywood’s heaviest hitters with renditions of “The Promised Land” and “Dancing in the Dark.”

Singer Bruce Springsteen performs at the USC Shoah Foundation 20th Anniversary Gala in Los Angeles on May 7. Photo by Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

TV host and comedian Conan O’Brien served as the evening’s host and suggested that given the massive traffic jams caused by security for the President’s visit, perhaps he could just send his message by Skype the next time around.

Praising the Shoah Foundation’s work, O’Brien deadpanned that it “was recording evidence of intolerance long before Donald Sterling’s girlfriend.”

Even with the array of the evening’s eloquent speakers, they were almost upstaged by Celina Biniaz, who was the youngest person included in Schindler’s famous list.

“Oskar Schindler gave me my life,” the Camarillo resident said. “Steven Spielberg gave me my voice.”

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