Special Musical Guest

Mar. 8, 2011 (Business Wire) — Steven Spielberg, Founder of the USC Shoah Foundation Institute, will present Brian L. Roberts, Chairman and CEO of Comcast Corporation, with the USC Shoah Foundation Institute’s highest honor—the Ambassador for Humanity Award. Roberts will be recognized for his visionary leadership and philanthropic works in the areas of education and technology. Spielberg will present the award at the Institute’s annual gala, taking place this year in Roberts’ hometown of Philadelphia on May 9. Jon Bon Jovi, a longtime supporter of the Institute and of Comcast and Roberts’ philanthropic work, will lend his considerable talents as special musical guest for the evening. Serving as gala Co-Chairs are Stephen A. Cozen, Founder and Chairman of Cozen O’Connor, and longstanding member of the Institute’s Board of Councilors, along with his wife, Sandy.

Since 1994, the USC Shoah Foundation Institute has collected and maintains an archive of nearly 52,000 video testimonies of Holocaust survivors and other witnesses from 56 countries, and in 32 languages. The Ambassadors for Humanity Award honors individuals who embody the Institute’s values and mission to promote tolerance and mutual respect through the educational use of the testimonies in its Visual History Archive.

The organization has a long history in Philadelphia, where its regional office helped coordinate the collection of more than 1,100 testimonies in Pennsylvania and 16 surrounding states by local residents trained as interviewers and videographers. Additionally, more than 900 teachers across Pennsylvania – and over 12,000 nationally – have been trained to date on Echoes and Reflections, a multimedia curriculum developed by the Institute and partners, the Anti-Defamation League and Yad Vashem.

The May gala will provide the opportunity to raise awareness of the Institute’s core work and groundbreaking programs, as well as highlight the joint efforts between Comcast and the USC Shoah Foundation Institute, who have partnered on a variety of educational initiatives to help advance the organization’s mission.

“Brian Roberts has been a longtime advocate of finding and developing innovative avenues to reach and educate young people,” said Steven Spielberg, Founder of the USC Shoah Foundation Institute. “Working with Brian and Comcast to further explore ways to bring digital literacy to education gives me great hope that together we can effect significant change. Brian’s vision and commitment to enhancing digital literacy in schools and communities across America make him a great Ambassador for learning, and I am proud to recognize him for his efforts and for supporting the Institute’s educational work.”

Gala presenting sponsor TNT is a longstanding partner for this event and once again joins in support of the Institute. “The USC Shoah Foundation Institute works globally to fight hatred and racism,” said Steve Koonin, president of Turner Entertainment Networks. “We’re proud to support this great organization’s unique and important mission.”

“I am so pleased that the USC Shoah Foundation Institute has joined forces with Brian Roberts and Comcast as we explore new ways to utilize our archive as an educational tool, and endeavor to reach a growing number of educators and students around the country,” said Stephen D. Smith, the Institute’s Executive Director. “Brian Roberts’ foresight and leadership is a guiding light as we work hard to have impact on students’ attitudes, beliefs, and sense of responsibility for the future.”

For more information about the Gala or to purchase tickets, please call the Philadelphia Benefit Office at 610-664-0358 or the USC Shoah Foundation Institute Benefit Office at 818-777-7876. All proceeds benefit the USC Shoah Foundation Institute. Donations are tax-deductible to the full extent permitted by law.

About the USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education

In 1994, after completing the film Schindler’s List, Steven Spielberg established the Shoah Foundation to collect and preserve the video testimonies of survivors and other witnesses of the Holocaust. He envisioned that these eyewitness accounts could have a profound effect on education, and that the survivors could become teachers of humanity for generations to come. Today, the USC Shoah Foundation Institute’s Visual History Archive is one of the largest video digital libraries in the world, with nearly 52,000 testimonies in 32 languages and from 56 countries.

The Shoah Foundation Institute is part of the University of Southern California’s College of Letters, Arts & Sciences; its mission is to overcome prejudice, intolerance, and bigotry—and the suffering they cause—through the educational use of its visual history testimonies.

Working within the University and with partners around the world to advance education, research, and scholarship, the Institute provides unique and essential content through the dissemination of its testimonies. Through innovative online tools, resources, and groundbreaking programs developed for educators and students, the Institute is playing a global role in transforming education. In addition, the Institute is working to preserve its testimonies in perpetuity, and to expand the archive with accounts of survivors and witnesses of other genocides.

Individuals interested in supporting the USC Shoah Foundation Institute are encouraged to visit the website at http://college.usc.edu/vhi.

http://www.un.org/en/holocaustremembrance/2011/webcast.shtml

The By-Stander Effect

http://www.tigardtimes.com/news/story.php?story_id=129791601005535100

http://blog.seattlepi.com/wallingford/2011/02/12/bystander-intervention-in-wallingford-2/

Hate Speech

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/02/14/unchecked-hate-speech-%E2%80%98exacerbates-intolerance%E2%80%99.html

http://globalvoicesonline.org/2011/02/16/macedonia-reactions-to-kale-incident-and-hate-speech/

History

http://www.economist.com/node/18114903?story_id=18114903&fsrc=rss

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9L9VDH83.htm

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hKT3K1kjdEjvk8qrARG6fVnYRQLg?docId=9379257ea391469bb33dc16f590bb3c9

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ge96xAfmfIHi-wBZl085DKv_jSxw?docId=CNG.ddc5cd0eed5e8a3157038ffbf32e881f.881

Propaganda

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/movies/article/940715–really-really-creepy-nazi-3-d-films-discovered

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/feb/15/obama-admin-to-cancel-voice-of-america-china-broad/

Racism

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/arts/television/08rise.html

Bullying

http://www.mercurynews.com/san-mateo-county/ci_17399220

http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/healthday/649636.html

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1657723/brett-loewenstern-american-idol.jhtml

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_17414486?nclick_check=1

Elie Wiesel on Libya

\http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/elie-wiesel-world-must-intervene-to-stop-gadhafi-1.345309

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/feb/16/antisemitism-philosemitism

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-hier-anti-semitism-20110218,0,4920991.story

http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/US%20redirects%20Sudan%20focus%20to%20Darfur%20but%20is%20anyone%20looking/-/2558/1102018/-/2svixjz/-/

Genocide court orders three ex-Khmer Rouge leaders to stay in jail
Monsters and Critics.com

NYTimes: French Railway Apologizes to the Jewish People

Reuters: Google Widens Access to Yad Vashem files

JPost: Taking Aim at Iranian Holocaust Denial

JTA: Mass Graves to be Preserved

Manchester Evening News: Muslims in Solidarity with Jews on Holocaust Memorial Day

WSJ: Senator Gillbrand to ask US to boycott Durban III

LATimes: Armenians seek Reparations:

theforward: Why Antisemitism is Growing in Germany:

JTA: Can Hungarian antisemitism get out of control?

VOA Human rights abuses in Ivory Coast

Guardian UK: Iranian government stirs up antisemitism with invented massacre

Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in America condemn Anti-Semitism

VOA: Germany Opens Rwanda Genocide Trial:

Ynet: Israel Arrests Bosnian Genocide Suspect:

People on the left and right have been wrestling over the legacy of Jared Loughner, arguing about whether his shooting spree proves that the Sarah Palins and Glenn Becks of the world are fomenting violence. But it’s not as if this is the only data point we have. Here’s another one:

Six months ago, police in California pulled over a truck that turned out to contain a rifle, a handgun, a shotgun and body armor. Police learned from the driver — sometime after he opened fire on them — that he was heading for San Francisco, where he planned to kill people at the Tides Foundation. You’ve probably never heard of the Tides Foundation — unless you watch Glenn Beck, who had mentioned it more than two dozen times in the preceding six months, depicting it as part of a communist plot to “infiltrate” our society and seize control of big business.

Note the parallel with Loughner’s case. Loughner was convinced that a conspiracy was afoot — a conspiracy by the government to control our thoughts (via grammar, in his bizarre worldview). So he decided to kill one of the conspirators.

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The south’s secession would split Africa’s largest country in two and deprive the north of most of its oil fields, though Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has said he will let the south go peacefully.

Ann Itto, an official with Southern Sudan’s ruling Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement, told journalists on Wednesday that nearly 2.3 million voters had cast ballots so far, surpassing the 60 percent of registered votes needed to ensure the outcome’s validity…

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When the Tel Aviv suburb of Bnei Brak, with a large ultra-Orthodox population, banned renting apartments to migrant workers and moved to evict those already living there, it met with mild public objection. When the municipal rabbi of Safed, Shmuel Eliyahu, warned against renting apartments to Arab students in town, again, the response was limited.

But a religious ruling signed by dozens of rabbis banning renting or selling apartments to non-Jews has met with dismay and anger, prompting reaction across the board.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the ruling, saying people would be outraged if the shoe was on the other foot and Jews were barred from renting property anywhere in the world. Moderate rabbis condemn the assault on Judaism and democracy. Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial museum and education center in Jerusalem, condemned the ruling as a blow to Jewish values, while Arab lawmakers likened the rabbis to skinheads. Even Amnesty International joined the fray.

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