Rabbi Marvin Hier, SWC Founder and Dean responds to overnight anti-Semitic violence in Los Angeles

"In response to the surge of anti-Semitic and most recently the vandalism of a synagogue and kosher restaurant in Los Angeles, Rabbi Marvin Hier, released the following statement:

In 1977, I went to Vienna to ask Simon Wiesenthal to give his name to the creation of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. One of the questions I asked him was, “Simon, you lost 89 members of your familyin the Holocaust – why are you living in Vienna? Why not the United States where there are Jews to help you?”

Simon replied, “If you’re studying malaria, you have to find out where the mosquitos are. When you’re studying anti-Semitism, you have to live in Vienna where the Nazis are.”

I ask myself now, what if Simon Wiesenthal were alive today? Where would he live? I’m sorry to say his answer would probably be in the United States – where anti-Semitism is now flourishing.

Anti-Semitism has now become America’s greatest hate pandemic and we terribly need to find a vaccine that really reflects America’s human dignity.

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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 agenciesincluding the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino).