B’nai B’rith International is pleased to announce the winners of its 2022 None Shall Be Afraid Essay Contest, held to encourage young people to offer suggestions on how a community can identify and stop incidents of anti-Semitism. The three winners are Adrian Weiss, Jennifer Karlan and Daniel Evans.

The contest invited students aged 18-22 to respond to the alarming spike in attacks on Jews in the United States, Israel and around the world, online and in person, through their essay submissions. The three winners received scholarship funds. The first place winner was awarded a $2,500 scholarship, second place winner was awarded $1,000 and third place winner was awarded $500. The first-place essay was also published in the Winter 2022 edition of B’nai B’rith Magazine.

First place: Adrian Weiss, 19, the University of Texas at Austin, class of 2025. Weiss wrote on the importance of identifying anti-Semitism in order to combat it, especially in a world where it comes from all sides of the political spectrum and manifests in countless forms. You can read his essay here.

Second place: Jennifer Karlan, 19, Harvard College, class of 2026. In her essay, she discussed anti-Zionism as a form of Jew-hatred and the importance of educating young Jewish people so they can combat this hatred.

Third place: Daniel Evans, 20, University of Rochester, class of 2024. Evans wrote on education and information as essential tools in the fight against anti-Semitism.

B’nai B’rith International created the None Shall Be Afraid initiative to keep a focus on anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism in our society. None Shall Be Afraid was inspired by the 1790 letter from George Washington to the congregants of Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, where he quoted Micah 4:4, “Everyone shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.”

Learn more about B’nai B’rith’s None Shall Be Afraid initiative here.