Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) and Leo Terrell, chair of the U.S. Justice Department task force to combat Jew-hatred, were among the honorees awarded for speaking out on behalf of Israel and the Jewish people at a ceremony in Washington on Wednesday.
Speaking at the Endowment for Middle East Truth’s annual “Rays of Light in the Darkness” gala, Fetterman said that the more people “back away from Israel,” the more he would “lean in stronger.”
“What Hamas has started was a full-on war against civilization and trying to destroy Israel,” Fetterman said. “It’s my supreme honor to be the very, very committed voice and vote whatever Israel needs to destroy their enemies and to create enduring peace in the entire region.”
During his acceptance speech, Terrell called Daniel and Ruth Lischinsky onto the stage. Their 30-year-old son, Yaron, was a staff member at the Israeli embassy in Washington who was shot and killed alongside his soon-to-be fiancée, Sarah Milgrim, 26, outside the Capital Jewish Museum in May. The man charged with their killing allegedly shouted “Free Palestine” during the attack.
“In Israel, we have a problem. Here in the States, you have a problem, and it’s called hatred of the Jewish people. It’s called antisemitism,” Daniel Lischinsky said.
“The same antisemitism that provoked Oct. 7, that performed Oct. 7, the same antisemitism that came, that killed, that murdered Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky,” he said. “We are all of us in the same boat. We are, all of us, in danger.”
Without specifying to whom he was referring, Terrell said that he believes that some members of the Trump administration have what he called “Jewish fatigue” in regard to fighting antisemitism.
“‘Oh, we’ve done enough. ‘Oh, we’ve settled a few cases.’ We have never done enough as long as Jewish-Americans are not afforded the same rights,” Terrell said. “It is an ongoing fight.”
“You cannot get tired. I will never get tired,” he said. “This is an American issue, a Western civilization issue.”
Yechiel Leiter, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, was also honored at the event, as were Szabolcs Takács, Hungary’s ambassador to the United States, and Anila Ali, a Pakistani-American Muslim civil-rights advocate.
