“Not just tolerance. I don't like the word tolerance. Tolerance means I am superior than you are. I don't want to be tolerated. I don't want to be a second-class citizen. I want respect. Mutual respect and mutual understanding.” Rabbi Arthur Schneier is a Holocaust survivor and a human rights activist. He shares harrowing memories of his childhood in Vienna and later in Hungary after the Nazis came to power. Many of his family members were murdered, including his grandfather, a prominent rabbi who died in Auschwitz. He was determined to also become a rabbi in his honor, and to make a new life in the United States.

From the Park East Synagogue in New York City, Rabbi Schneier has dedicated a lifetime to promoting peace, reconciliation, and inter-faith and inter-cultural dialogue. UN Secretary General António Guterres has called him “an inspiration for the world and for the United Nations.”