As we begin the New Year during these difficult times, the Simon Wiesenthal Center continues its global mandate of remembering the past and safeguarding our future.

We are all facing an unprecedented challenge of the pandemic, social unrest and riots, coupled with an even more aggressive uptick in anti-Semitism. And, Jews are being blamed.  A recent Oxford University poll shows that 20% of Britons believe that Jews are behind COVID-19. Louis Farrakhan continues his relentless campaign of anti-Semitism, most recently attacking the Center in his magazine, The Final Call. Farrakhan's supporters joined with German anti-Semites in accusing Israel of creating COVID-19 as a money maker, while a Polish-Canadian newspaper, Glos, recently wrote that COVID-19 is a condition of “organized Jewry” and that Jews are the cause of all the world’s ills.

The pandemic has forced institutions like ours to furlough staff and temporarily close both our international headquarters and Museum of Tolerance campus in Los Angeles, home to our Moriah Films studio. The same applies to our global offices in New York, Chicago, Toronto, Paris, Buenos Aires, and Jerusalem.

To enable us to effectively beat back the escalating hate and anti-Semitism, we are turning to you, our loyal members, who have supported us through thick and thin over these many years. We urgently need your help to keep the Center’s much needed global operations intact. We are counting on you!

Wishing you and your family a happy and healthy New Year, 

Rabbi Marvin Hier

Simon Wiesenthal Center Founder and CEO