The following is an abridged version of the author’s acceptance speech at the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Humanitarian Award Dinner in Chicago on June 10, 2026, where she was honored alongside Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt.

Courtesy/Simon Wiesenthal Center

Investor and philanthropist Sara Crown Stern is presented with the Simon Weisenthal Center's Humanitarian Award by Todd Stern, the previous year's recipient, at the organization's gala dinner in Chicago on June 10, 2026.

Years ago, I visited Auschwitz with about 20 Jewish lay leaders, Jewish professionals and Israeli government officials. What I remember most were the Auschwitz blueprints. The Nazis had multiple engineering drawings prepared: How thick should the pipes be to gas the Jews? Should the dead bodies drop to a basement level? What was the most efficient way to maximize the killings? They industrialized death. They turned hate into a system.

That system did not end with the camps. 

Fast forward to August 9, 2001. It’s the Second Intifada, and I’m at a graduation in Jerusalem. A bomb goes off nearby, and I watch back-to-back ambulances race to the nearby Sbarros pizzeria, where a Hamas bomber murdered 16 people — seven of them children, one a pregnant woman — and injured 130 others. 

That was the day I decided to dedicate time to this fight.  

By 2026, the system has changed again. Hate has been re-industrialized. Not in gas chambers. Not in nail bombs. In code.

In my work, I see what algorithms can do when they are directed toward saving lives. Everyone can see what algorithms can do when they are weaponized to spread misinformation. A lie about Jews travels faster than the truth because the platforms have learned that outrage is profitable — and outrage about Jews has become one of the most profitable products on earth.

The blueprints may look different, but the purpose is the same. It is emblematic of what so many members of our community are now experiencing every day.

The high school student. 

The middle school student. 

Even the elementary school student who is verbally harassed, or worse.

The university student who worries about walking from their dorm to class.

These evils are no longer isolated. They are affecting all of us.

So, here is the one thing I am asking you. I’m framing it as a dare, and the dare changes by age. 

If you’re under 18, I dare you: The next time you see an antisemitic post on your feed, don’t scroll past it. Reply with the truth. Report it. Or send a friend the real story. Just commit to doing it once. And if you like how it feels, do it again — and then get your friends to do the same.

If you’re between 18 and 65, I challenge you: At your next dinner, at your next meeting,  on the next group text where someone says something untrue about Jews or Israel — speak up. You don’t have to be eloquent; you just can’t be neutral.

If you’re over 65, I respectfully ask this: Tell one young person one true story this week.

About Oct. 7. About what “from the river to the sea” really means. About why Jews say, “Never Again.” You are the storytellers of our community.

And if you happen to be over 100… honestly, just keep showing up. We all stop and listen when you walk into the room. 

You are the tip of the sword of our community. You are the true humanitarians. Each of these dares comes down to you not being neutral.

Last year, I rode home from a Brothers for Life event in Miami with a captain in the IDF bomb squad. At 35, this captain found himself deaf in one ear after his team had been hit by a rocket-propelled grenade.   

I asked him, “Why in the world would you volunteer for the bomb squad?” 

He answered: “I’m not strong, I’m not fast, and I’m not an athlete. But I wanted to be of value to the IDF, and I could do that by using my mind to disarm bombs.”

The bombs we face today don’t just tick. They trend. They’re amplified by social media platforms and detonated by silence.

Like that soldier, we have minds. I’m asking you to use yours.

There are millions of us — and our voices, refusing silence, are louder than any algorithm.

Together, let’s set the sun on hate and let’s help it rise on truth.

Don’t be neutral. Not even once.

Sara Crown Star is the 2026 recipient of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Humanitarian Award. Crown Star is a venture partner with FemHealth Ventures and the president of SCS Innovations. She co-chairs the Jewish Committee of Crown Family Philanthropies and serves on the boards of the Crown Family Foundation, the Jewish United Fund and 1871 (Chicago’s entrepreneurial hub). She is also a life trustee of the Erikson Institute, president of the Colonel Henry Crown Scholarship Fund and a director of Musicians on Call and the Ortus Foundation.