USC Shoah Foundation’s Dr. Robert J. Williams Stresses Why Challenging Extremism Matters Now More Than Ever
variety.comDr. Robert J. Williams Dr. The Variety Summit on Antisemitism comes at a time when the world’s oldest hatred is having a clear resurgence.
Jews across the world — and here in Los Angeles — have been targeted by hateful words, threats and guns. Show business has long been a target of antisemitism, and once again, we find ourselves at the vanguard, looking to push back at the tropes, conspiracy theories and other hateful stories online.
As a historian, it’s important to look back at where these hatreds come from, what they mean, and why we must stop them. About 100 years ago, H.G.
Wells warned that humanity “is in a race between education and catastrophe.” He wrote these words in the shadow of World War I, a tragedy he believed was the result of our failure to respect one another and our tendency to ignore “every country but our own.” A few years later, he and others watched as fascist, extremist and totalitarian movements appeared across Europe, from the former Russian empire to Britain, and across the Atlantic, eventually culminating in the Holocaust and World War II, where 6 million Jews and 25 million others were killed.
Read more on variety.com