A Message from the President and CEO, Canada
Dear Friends,
Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies (FSWC) has experienced significant growth in membership and visibility in 2011, due largely to our ongoing advocacy work, our highly successful educational workshops and well-attended special events.
The Spirit of Hope gala benefit remains our most high profile event, attracting more than 2,500 people and raising more than $2 million to support our efforts to promote human rights. This year’s event, moderated by Founder & CEO of Indigo Books and Music, Heather Reisman, featured Harvard Law Professor and author Alan Dershowitz, CNN Senior Political Analyst David Gergen, former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and Associate Editor of the Washington Post, Bob Woodward.
Other events ranged in scope from the hosting of an exclusive screening of “Barney’s Version” featuring a Question and Answer session with Producer Robert Lantos, as well as several smaller film screenings, to an adrenalin-pumping Formula One style car racing program in July. FSWC donors also had the opportunity to participate in conference calls with experts including Jerusalem Post reporter Khaled Abu Toameh and the Israeli Ambassador to the US, Michael Oren. Our membership eagerly anticipates the mid-September Award of Valour Luncheon honouring Laureen Harper. Celebrated feminist, politician, author and filmmaker Aayan Hirsi Ali will be the keynote speaker.
FSWC’s focus on human rights around the world was heightened in 2011 as the Center opened a temporary ‘Tolerance. Justice. Human Rights’ gallery highlighting the issues of Cambodian landmines, the genocide in Rwanda and the Holocaust. In addition, the first annual Freedom Day event in Toronto’s Yonge-Dundas Square on September 20 will feature L.Gen. Romeo Dallaire as the keynote speaker; more than 1,500 students from across the Greater Toronto Area are expected to attend. The new FSWC ‘Revolution and Evolution’ exhibit documents the ongoing unrest in the Arab world. At 7’ x 42’, this 14- panel display is an impressive look at the beginnings of an historic human rights movement whose ending has yet to be written. Finally, ‘The Expert Hour with Avi Benlolo’ takes to the airwaves on AM640; the human rights oriented program airs every third Sunday from 10:00 am – 11:00 am in Toronto beginning on September 11, 2011 and running to December 4, 2011.
FSWC has continued its advocacy work throughout the year, meeting with politicians at the local, provincial and federal level and corresponding with heads of state to discuss issues affecting the Jewish and wider community including hate in the Toronto Gay Pride parade, the increasing discrimination and intimidation associated with Israel Apartheid Week (IAW) at universities across the country and the growing threat of antisemitism in Canadian society and in countries around the world.
Dealing with antisemitism remains a top priority. In response to IAW, FSWC launched a ‘Talk Peace. Stop Hate’ initiative at York University in Toronto and at the University of Western Ontario in London. The effort to ensure the Toronto Gay Pride parade is free of hate messages is ongoing, while this August the University of Toronto antisemitism Task Force was launched to review, report and recommend actions to counter antisemitism at the university where the IAW movement was born.
In July FSWC lead a group of high level politicians, Directors of Education and donors on our third highly successful ‘From Compassion to Action’ mission to Poland to visit the sites of the Holocaust. In addition, we awarded the first three Wiesenthal Graduate Scholarships to Masters and Doctoral students who have demonstrated a commitment to rigorous academic scholarship and research that supports and promotes the legitimate rights and aspirations of the Jewish people, and presented four FSWC high school scholarships to university-bound students who, in their schools and extracurricular activities, exemplify Simon Wiesenthal’s passion for social justice and human rights.
Finally, FSWC educational workshops continue to be in high demand. More than 10,000 elementary and high school students from across Ontario benefit from our curriculum-based programs dealing with the Holocaust, genocide, racism and bullying, with new programs being developed to meet the need and demand for social justice and equity education in school boards in the coming academic year.
With your generous support we look forward to continuing our mission to improve Canadian society by fighting antisemitism and all forms of hatred and supporting projects that promote tolerance, social justice and human rights. To make a donation and receive our weekly e - newsletter, please call 1-866-864-9735.
Thank you.
Avi Benlolo
President & CEO, Canada
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Board of Directors
Sam Belzberg, OC, OBC
Honourary Chairman
Gerald W. Schwartz, OC
Chairman
Lawrence Bloomberg, OC,
O.Ont.
Michael Bregman
Paul Bronfman
Tony Comper, OC
David Cynamon
Gordon R. Diamond, LLD,
OBC
Joel Feldberg
Jeremy Freedman
Ron Frisch
Dr. Max Glassman
Malka Green
Rabbi Marvin Hier
Rabbi Meyer May
Philip Reichmann
Jill Reitman
Honey Sherman
Alex Shnaider
Allan Silber
Raymond Stone
Eric Weisz
Cecil Yolles
Board of Governors
Dr. Rose Rahmani and Harry Silverberg, Chairman
Walter Arbib
Victor Arluk
Brad Ashley
Norm Bacal
Gary Bensky
Dr. Andrew Braude
Cecil Brauer
Allan Brown
Mitchell Brown
Farley Cohen
Merrick Falkenstein
Alan Farber
Jack Fine
Garry Foster
Allen Grinberg
Joe Gottdenker
Sheldon Hellin
Howard Kerbel
Tom Koffler
Helene Korn
Alan Lechem
Justin S. Linden
Joel Matlin
Howard Meyer
Israel Mida
Faye Minuk
Sam Mizrahi
Oded Orgil
Leah Price
Rick Sacks
Gloria Salomon
Henry Schnurbach
Mike Sereny
Dorothy Shoichet
Marilyn Sliwin
Arthur Stern
Mark Teitelbaum
Larry Maher
Alan Wainer
Mark Weisbarth
Janice Weiss
Eddie Weisz
Eric Weisz
Maryka Weisz
Daniel Wittlin
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