Holocaust & Human Rights Education Center Annual Benefit

The HHREC Annual Benefit will be held on Wednesday, October 30th starting at 6:30pm at Westchester Country Club in Rye, New York. The honorees are R. Derek Black, author of the book, THE KLANSMAN’S SON: MY JOURNEY FROM WHITE NATIONALISM TO ANTIRACISM, and Elisha Wiesel, Philanthropist, Chairman of the Board of the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, and former Wall Street executive at Goldman Sachs.

All who register and those who donate $500 or more will receive a copy of the book by R. Derek Black in advance, who will be available to sign it at the event.

About the Honorees:

R. Derek Black (they/them) is the author of THE KLANSMAN’S SON, a book that shares the story of being raised to take over the white nationalist movement in the US. Their father, Don Black, was a former Grand Wizard in the Ku Klux Klan and started Stormfront, the internet’s first white supremacist website. THE KLANSMAN’S SON is an insightful and moving account of a singular life, with important lessons for these contentious times. The place where Derek’s world turned upside down – New College of Florida – has become a prominent battleground in the fight over race, gender, and education, and few understand the ideology, motivations, or tactics of the white nationalist movement like Derek. As coded language and creeping authoritarianism spread the ideas of white nationalists, this is an essential book with a powerful voice.

R. Derek Black is a doctoral candidate in history at the University of Chicago. Since 2016, they have spoken to many audiences at universities, foundations, institutions, museums, synagogues, and churches. They received the Elie Wiesel Award and a humanitarian award from the Anti-Defamation League. THE KLANSMAN’S SON is their first book.

Elisha Wiesel is a recovering Wall Street executive. Since retiring from a twenty-five year financial markets career at Goldman Sachs at the end of 2019, he served in 2020 as one of the lead technologists in Mike Bloomberg’s presidential campaign. Elisha became philanthropically active through his board service with Good Shepherd Services, where he raised millions of dollars for New York’s neediest by convening “Midnight Madness”, inspiring hundreds of finance professionals to stay up all night solving elaborate puzzles on the city streets.

When his father passed, Elisha realized how many others missed his voice––and so, when opportunities for impact arise, Elisha shares his father’s message and continues his legacy by standing up for persecuted communities. In the last few years, Elisha has spoken at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum about the need to protect the LGBTQ community; shone a light while speaking at Auschwitz on the plight of Syrian refugees being denied Western asylum; written for the Financial Times about the urgency of upholding DACA; organized a Washington DC rally against antisemitism — including anti-Zionism; spoken at the United Nations about the persecution of the Uyghurs, and taken his son to peacefully march for Black Lives.