Boston, MA (PRWEB) May 18, 2014
Anti-Defamation League National Director Abraham Foxman urged Suffolk University Law School graduates to use their legal expertise to recognize injustice and to be courageous enough to speak out against bias in a commencement speech May 17 at the Citi Performing Arts Center-Wang Theatre in Bostons Theatre District.
Foxman asked graduates to speak out when they hear hateful language a racist joke, religious slur or anything that demeans the differences among us, acknowledging that this takes courage.
Had there been people of courage in 1915 when the Armenian genocide was happening, when the bricks of Krystallnacht presaged the Holocaust and during genocides in Cambodia and Rwanda, millions of lives might have been spared,” said Foxman.
“It was not bricks that started the Holocaust, but hateful words that demonized the Jews,” said Foxman. We have to find ways to live together, to grow together to choose our words carefully.
The courage of a family employee, a woman who risked her life every day for four years to save the life of another human being, allowed Foxman to survive the Holocaust in Poland. But he said he was left with many questions: about why so many perished; why the world did nothing; and why he survived.
As I grew older, I realized there were no answers, only questions and more questions, said Foxman.
He decided to combine his professional legal training with his moral viewpoint to fight injustice and hate through the Anti-Defamation League and asked the graduates to similarly find a way to heal and repair a little bit this world that needs repair.
There is a need for reasoned and strong leadership, and your generation has a challenge and an opportunity to bring us back to a balanced and civil society. said Foxman, who was met with a prolonged standing ovation as his speech ended.
Foxman is a worldwide leader in the fight against bigotry who joined the ADL in 1965 and has devoted his life to fighting anti-Semitism, bigotry and discrimination throughout the world. The Law School presented Foxman with an honorary Doctor of Laws degree.
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