SWC Commends Arnold Schwarzenegger for Generous Gift to Support Center's Work Fighting Hate, Bigotry and Anti-Semitism

August 14, 2017

The Simon Wiesenthal Center commended former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger for speaking out against Saturday’s white supremacist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. The Center also thanked him for a generous gift to support the Center’s work fighting against hate, bigotry, and anti-Semitism. Schwarzenegger announced the gift of $100,000 in a Facebook post yesterday, saying “My message to them [white supremacists] is simple: you will not win. Our voices are louder and stronger.”

“Arnold has been a supporter of the Simon Wiesenthal Center for over three decades. We’ve never been prouder of his leadership than when we saw his tweet last night challenging everyone to do more in the fight against hate,” said Rabbi Marvin Hier, Founder and Dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

In statement on Saturday, the Wiesenthal Center said that the car-ramming that killed activist Heather Hayer and wounded some 26 others should be “treated as a deliberate act of domestic terrorism.” The Center also said, “Today’s death and violence follows last night’s torchlight march at University of Virginia, reminiscent of KKK rallies where chants of the slogan ‘Blood and Soil’ used by marchers at mass Nazi rallies in Nuremberg and elsewhere in Germany during the 1930s and 1940s, were spouted by extremists.”

The Center also called on American leaders, regardless of their political affiliations, and lead by President Trump to “specifically condemn the extreme alt-right and white nationalists who sow seeds of hate, distrust and violence. They and all other extremists, left or right, have no place in the mainstream of our nation.”

For more information, please contact 310-553-9036, join the Center on Facebook, www.facebook.com/simonwiesenthalcenter, or follow @simonwiesenthal for news updates sent direct to your Twitter feed.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino).