Iton Gadol sat down with Alan Schneider, director of the B’nai B’rith World Center in Jerusalem, to speak about our organization’s essential work in Israel and around the globe, including the fight against anti-Semitism and Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians after Hamas’ brutal Oct. 7 attack.

Read the interview in Iton Gadol in Spanish or below in English.

In an interview with Iton Gadol, director of the B’nai B’rith World Center in Jerusalem Alan Schneider reflected on what B’nai B’rith has done and the vital institution’s projects from the days of its founding to the present.

In addition to talking about the organization right now, he also spoke about the fight against anti-Semitism and the current conflict with the Palestinians. “People in Israel are very strong and have a conscience of thousands of years. Understand that this is the Promised Land,” Schneider said.

Below are the most important sections of the interview:

What does B’nai B’rith mean in the Jewish world?

The founding members of B’nai B’rith Israel were among the leaders of the new Jewish population of Jerusalem. They were quite young… Eliezer Ben-Yehuda was the first secretary of the Jerusalem Office of B’nai B’rith, which was the first place where Hebrew was spoken around the table in the new era. And Ben-Yehuda insisted that the official language of the office be Hebrew and that the minutes he kept be written in Hebrew during the first Office meetings. Eliezer Ben-Yehuda himself…

In B’nai B’rith?

It was the Jerusalem office of B’nai B’rith… B’nai B’rith is organized into offices, lodges… Dr. (Wilhelm) Herzberg was the first president. Wine from Germany. He emigrated to Israel and for a certain period was the director of Mikve Israel. After that he went up to Jerusalem and established the Jerusalem Orphanage and the Jerusalem Office. He surrounded himself with the leaders of the new Jewish population, the type of Eliezer Ben Yehuda, Yosef Meyuhas, David Yelin… He was a very important figure… The doctor (Aharon) Masie… All these people have streets (with his name) in Jerusalem. B’nai B’rith also has a street in Jerusalem, where our historic building is located, which was the National Library. The new building commemorates and is a continuation of the library established by the Jerusalem Office of B’nai B’rith in 1892. In 1902, the doors of that building were opened… In fact, the intention was to gather all the important books of the world’s Jews, so that they can be in Jerusalem.

What was the role of B’nai B’rith at the beginning?

I know this from the lectures I read from that time. There is a very interesting book, which celebrated the 40th anniversary of the creation of the Office, when people were still alive. The same founders. That is, 1888-1928… There are the speeches, so they can be read and there are also the first minutes. They wanted to contact the organization B’nai B’rith International to establish a national home in the Land of Israel. That is: even before the creation of the Zionist movement there was Zionist activity here, in Israel! The Baron (Edmond de Rothschild), the lands, the populations… That was the beginning, at the end of the 19th century, of a Jewish awakening in the Land of Israel, and B’nai B’rith was part of that activity. For example, the Motza moshav, on the way to Jerusalem, was established by B’nai B’rith. We have the contracts that were signed with four families of Jewish farmers, who bought the land that B’nai B’rith offered them. The Yelin family, the Cohen family… bought more land to establish a Jewish population there 9 kilometers north of Jerusalem. The baron erected Mazkeret Batya, Zijron Yaacov and more, but he didn’t want to touch Jerusalem. It was for the Arabs, the religions… B’nai B’rith said: “precisely in Jerusalem”, and they established Motza, hospitals, the Library… Another very important thing they did was to act against the Mission… There was a very active Christian mission in Jerusalem and they took actions to prevent Jews from entering the Mission schools, Mission hospitals… To give them alternatives: a school for Jews and a hospital for Jews, both in Jerusalem and in Yafo… Another interesting thing… They created secret missions to the Jewish communities of the Levant: Izmirna, Constantinople, Damascus, Alexandria… under the Ottoman Empire…

It was a difficult time…

Very difficult, and it was secret. It was forbidden to do so and they went out in secret and established offices of B’nai B’rith in these places, and there is correspondence between the presidents of those offices and the president of B’nai B’rith in Jerusalem in the Zionist Archive. There are many archives of B’nai B’rith in the Zionist Archive. They wanted to awaken those communities to the new era. They realized that something was happening here, there was a rebirth in Israel, the establishment of Jewish populations -Petaj Tikva, Zijron Yaakov, Rishon Letzion-, and they wanted to connect the Jews of the communities of the Levant with the new era…

What does the B’nai B’rith World Center do?

The B’nai B’rith World Center is an independent entity, registered in Israel and affiliated with B’nai B’rith International. Basically, my office represents all our members, in 50 countries around the world and the headquarters of B’nai B’rith, in Washington. Our main responsibility is to help the members and offices of B’nai B’rith around the world implement activities in Israel. All kinds of things… For example: bring for 5 or 6 days to Israel a delegation of non-Jewish journalists from seven Latin American countries, elected by the local members of B’nai B’rith in each country: in Costa Rica, in Uruguay… It is the fourth delegation of journalists from the Latin American press that we have brought to Israel and the first since October 7. So, the nature of the delegation is very, very different: it’s only about October 7 and the war.

After being in Israel, do journalists have a good sense of what’s going on here?

We are not trying to influence directly. We give them the opportunity to come to Israel, feel the pulse of what is happening here, in the South, in the North, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Office of the Prime Minister, the Police, the IDF spokesman… They are very, very busy, in the hope that they will have as many different experiences as possible. In the past, we have led delegations on issues of the economy, society and politics. This time we chose to be very, very focused on October 7, the consequences, why and what they think about both the opposition and the coalition…

How do you see your work today and what do you see for the future?

The challenges have now increased, there is no doubt. What was before October 7 and what is after is another world, a completely new world. I didn’t think that my grandchildren would talk about escaping from the outskirts of Gaza and coming to see me on October 8, or living with me to this day, or that my son, his father, would be fighting in Gaza, and also his brother. And also the swell of anti-Semitism in the world after what happened is really disturbing. It’s not surprising, but it’s still disturbing when Jews receive such blows, traumas. So, it’s an opportunity to attack the Jews even more and hurt them. In the swell of anti-Semitism that we see in certain countries, there is an increase of hundreds, in Europe, as well as in Canada and in the United States.

How does B’nai B’rith advocate on the issue of anti-Semitism?

We are trying very actively within the framework of the IHRA, the International Alliance for Remembrance of the Shoah. Since 1947, for example, we have had official status at the U.N. So, we are very active within the framework of the U.N.: at UNESCO, at the Human Rights Council, also in New York, at the General Assembly. Every year, when the session of the General Assembly takes place, we meet with dozens of prime ministers and chancellors who go to New York to bring them the message of a Judeosionist organization, an organization that has also been a member of the Zionist Organization (World) for 30 years. Then, as a Zionist organization, we take the message of Israel and Zionism to the heads of state.

Is there anything that the World Zionist Organization doesn’t do and you do?

Not every organization has a status at the U.N. Our status at the U.N., in the ECOSOC (Economic and Social Council), allows us to access all U.N. special meetings, for example: the Conference (World Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance) in Durban, South Africa. There are other Jewish organizations that are members and have NGO status, we are not the only ones, but we are the oldest and we are very active. We have someone who directs the U.N. issue on behalf of B’nai B’rith and is settled in New York. Just one example: we held international conferences at UNESCO on the subject of Ladin, Yiddish and Hebrew. We did the Hebrew one a year ago, in November, with the incoming president of the Academy of the Hebrew Language, the new one, and the outgoing president, and experts from at least 10 countries, perhaps 12 countries, who came from England, France.

Is there any work that only B’nai B’rith does in the State of Israel?

We have some special actions. A special theme is the commemoration of the Shoah: we assume the question of commemorating the Jews who risked their lives in the Shoah, in occupied Europe, to save other Jews. There is the well-known initiative of Yad Vashem of the “Righteous of the Nations”, the non-Jews who took a risk… but over time we saw that there were many Jews who took risks to save other Jews. They were already in danger, and instead of fleeing, instead of hiding, instead of being… they took action, they put themselves even more in danger, to try to save other Jews… We created a badge, a prize, in honor of the Jewish savior. To date, we recognized 624 people, men and women, who were members of the clandestine Jewish resistance movements and also personally risked actions to save other Jews. We investigate each case, look for the family of each of those saviors and perform ceremonies, large and small, even in Italy and the United States. In Israel, there is a forest shared by B’nai B’rith and the Keren Kayemet (KKL), the Forest of the Martyrs, and there is the very important monument of Nathan Rapoport called the Scroll of Fire. There we do a ceremony with a thousand people in Yom HaShoah and exalt as a miracle the heroism of the Jews who saved Jews in the Shoah. This is an example of something special. We also created a badge a year ago. For the first time, an international Jewish organization awards them a badge that honors non-Jewish Poles who preserve Jewish culture in Poland.

And how do you find out?

We also have a B’nai B’rith in Poland. A year ago we celebrated the centenary of the creation of B’nai B’rith in free Poland. That is to say: B’nai B’rith existed even before that, but we celebrated with a great conference the centenary of the foundation of B’nai B’rith in free Poland. Within the framework of the conference we awarded that badge, for the first time, to two people who are actively working to preserve Jewish culture and heritage in Poland, which is not easy. For example, there is a woman who works in some village, a small shtetl., she keeps what is left of the synagogue, the Jewish cemetery, puts up posters and not everyone in the village is happy with that. So we brought her, we gave her the badge and now we start working again for next year.

Finally, a message that believes important for the non-Jewish world and also for the Jewish communities.

I’m not sure it’s a different message for both of us. The message is to see the reaction of now in Israel to the events of October 7. Israel, at the end of the day, is strong, the people in Israel are very strong – they have a conscience of thousands of years. Understand that this is the Promised Land. Understand that for the Jews, destiny is linked to this land. There is no other place in the world that has a book from 3,000 years ago, that can read to this day and still reads it to this day, where it is written, and it is repeated, and says again and again that this is our Promised Land, the small country. We don’t want any other. We have no pretensions anywhere else in the world, neither in Argentina, nor in Uganda. And the majority of the people who are connected, who really have a Jewish conscience, understand it. And that’s why we fight, and we fight within Gaza, we fight inside the tunnels, and we believe in this mission. This is what I would like to say both to the Jews, that we want them to be here, to emigrate to Israel, and to non-Jews, who – of course – we want them to support the State of Israel because that is the right thing to do. There is nothing like what we saw here on October 7, not even during the Shoah. This means that they were proud of the crimes they committed against women, children, the elderly… They were proud, and that the Nazis tried to hide it. Here we saw the embodiment of evil and we will overcome it, and I sincerely hope that the objectives set by the prime minister to destroy Hamas will be achieved, return the kidnapped that can be returned and that Gaza will not be a threat to Israel again.