Gala Spotlight Speakers Give ADL Testimonials

  • December 12, 2014
Pictured: Educator Rhea McIver Gibbs was one of the spotlight speakers at ADL Gala.

A highlight of the ADL Annual Gala was a set of spotlight speakers – individuals who shared first-hand the impact of ADL programs and services.

Here are excerpts from their prepared spotlight speeches:

Duniya, an Afghani Muslim teen continuing her education in Los Angeles away from the reach of the Taliban, spoke of her experience learning about the Holocaust at ADL’s National Youth Leadership Mission.

I am from Afghanistan and I came to the U.S. a year and a half ago. I have recently been granted asylum and I want to thank everyone — especially my host parents Sara and Frank — for being so kind and loving to me. I am currently in the 11th grade at New Roads School where I am very strong in math and science but struggle with English. Today I am here, a Muslim student, to share with you my experience with ADL. (I heard) that there is this organization called the Anti-Defamation League and every year they have this program in which they chose 10 delegates from each state and take them to Washington DC. On this trip they teach the students about the Holocaust and ways to prevent hate and bigotry. The second I heard the words hate and Holocaust I said to myself that if I really want to make the world a better place for myself, my family and everyone else, I need to do something and this is one of the ways that I could begin to bring change. So I went and researched the Anti-Defamation League and learned about all the significant things they do. I sent in my application. With great luck I got accepted and went to Washington DC. During the trip I developed great relationships and learned things that I normally wouldn’t have. I was taught about the Holocaust and the genocide of Jews. I was taught how to prevent people from building up hate and bigotry and I was taught how to be a leader with a benevolent heart and a leader who is able to empathize with people. This whole trip benefited me in so many ways. I now feel more confident about myself than I ever have. It has helped me understand people and to listen to others’ opinions. I learned that the Holocaust is not something that ever should be forgotten because if it is, it would happen again. There is a phrase I learned when I came to this country which is “walking my walk and talking my talk.” My experience with the ADL has taught me that going forward, in everything I do, my talk and my walk will reflect my commitment to peace and understanding amongst all races and religions. Thank you, ADL, for this life-changing opportunity.

 

Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI Bill Lewis discussed the many ways ADL resources help law enforcement.

As you know, the FBI compiles statistics annually for a variety of reports to include crime statistics. Here are some numbers that are just as important but are not as well known:

  • 7.3 million – the number of visits to ADL’s extensive online resources for law enforcement. This is crucial to the men and women of the FBI.
  • 85,000 – The number of law enforcement personnel trained in partnership with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.  Every new FBI trainee at our academy visits the museum as part of a course we refer to as:  Law Enforcement and Society: Lessons of the Holocaust.
  • 500 – The number of law enforcement personnel honored by ADL, more than half of whom have received the Helene and Joseph Sherwood Prize for Combating Hate right here in Southern California.
  • and the number 1 — ADL is a leader in terms of non-governmental organizations that conduct training for law enforcement about extremism and hate crime.

In my 33-year career as a deputy sheriff and FBI agent, I have worked in many different parts of the country and can tell you that the local ADL plays an important role throughout the country.  I am grateful to be in Los Angeles where I can call Amanda and she and her staff are available to train us on cutting edge issues, serve as expert witnesses and support our investigations.   In closing, I’d like to add my sincere appreciation and admiration for the Sherwood family – for their support and recognition of the work we do – and for their unfailing mission in spreading the message to combat hate.

 

Rialto Middle School Principal Rhea McIver Gibbs commended ADL on its Holocaust Education programs for teachers.

I have been an educator for 24 years — 9 years as a classroom teacher and 15 years as an administrator — at the elementary and middle school levels.  I had the opportunity this past October to attend ADL’s Holocaust Education Institute at USC along with seven educators from the district.  I now have access to the USC Shoah Foundation’s Iwitness testimonials and Echoes and Reflections, a well-researched teacher’s guide written by the ADL and its partners at the USC Shoah Foundation and Yad Vashem. This comprehensive teacher’s guide is filled with primary sources, personal testimonials and historical facts documenting this monumental event that startled the world, shook up our consciousness and shaped the lives, both past and present, of generations of people regardless of race, ethnicity, or faith.

The ADL’s work world-wide is to be commended and I am grateful for their commitment to Holocaust education so that we shall never forget.  There continues to be a need to teach acceptance of others’ differences to children and remind adults that we can coexist if we learn to honor and respect people’s differences and validate each other’s cultures.  Echoes and Reflections will help to educate students from many walks of life about the historical Holocaust period. I am most thankful for my experience at ADL’s Holocaust Education Institute and I look forward to continuing my education.  “Now more than ever” we need these types of trainings and well-written curriculum like Echoes and Reflections.

 

Recent Occidental College graduate Hannah Mandel lauded ADL for its immediate response to an anti-Semitic act on campus.

“Don’t rock the boat”; “do you really want to draw attention to us?”; “it isn’t that big of a deal”; “you are overreacting.” These are just some of the comments i received last year after I spoke out against a hate crime at my college.

I am a recent graduate of Occidental College. Last November, the occidental community was notified through an email from the dean of students, that a swastika had been drawn on a Jewish student’s dorm room door. As president of Hillel, and more simply a Jewish student, I was stunned. Not only did this hate crime occur on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, but it also prompted a member of our Hillel community to tell me that he’d seen a second swastika drawn in the men’s library bathroom that same weekend.

Never did I think that these anti-Semitic acts would occur on my 2,000 person campus. I emailed the college president and other administrators immediately to set up individual meetings and planned a student body-wide meeting for the next day to discuss how to best handle the problem.

I was the only person who openly spoke out against the anti-Semitism occurring on my campus. Even some members of my Hillel executive board said that I should not talk about the swastikas because they did not want me to cause trouble or disrupt the campus climate. Some Jewish students accused me of being an instigator, asking me if I had any proof that the swastikas’ graffiti had any connection to the anniversary of Kristallnacht. Anonymous Facebook posts were written justifying the incidents, blaming the drawings on alcohol and drugs, claiming that the Hillel president was overreacting, and suggesting that the term “hate crime” should not apply to this situation.

During all this chaos, I worked with another student to contact ADL. I spoke with Ariella Schusterman, associate regional director, about coming to present at Occidental regarding the definition of a hate crime and how these hateful symbols not only affected the Jewish community, but rather everyone whether that be a person of color, a member of the LGBTQ community, or other students and faculty. Words cannot express my gratitude towards ADL. The ADL dropped everything to arrange a presentation only one week after the incidents were reported. Ariella and other ADL staff remained in constant communication with me before the presentation and provided me with emotional support and tips on how to best handle negative comments being directed towards me. When it came to the presentation, Ariella spoke for an hour, using slides, videos, and pictures to engage the audience, while having almost no voice because she was sick-i might add. She captivated the audience and educated all 175 people in attendance on anti-Semitism and hate crimes. Occidental had never educated students on religious hate crimes prior to this presentation.  ADL was the first to do so.

Because of these horrific incidents at Occidental and my work with Ariella and ADL, I developed a stronger voice and desire to advocate for the larger Jewish community. Currently, I am working as an AmeriCorps Vista member at Jewish Family Service, working with Holocaust survivors daily to assess their needs and develop community programs.  We can never stop speaking out against injustice no matter the resistance we face. As Natalie, a survivor I work with put it best, “It all started with just one swastika.” Thank you ADL, for being there for me, for the Occidental College community and for survivors like Natalie.