2026 Northeast Tribute Dinner

During his public service in six administrations, Ambassador Eizenstat served as chief White House domestic policy adviser to President Carter. It was in this capacity that he recommended a Presidential Commission on the Holocaust, chaired by Elie Wiesel, and helped draft legislation authorizing the creation of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 

In the Clinton administration, he held a number of key roles, including Ambassador to the EU, Under Secretary of Commerce, Under Secretary of State, and Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, while serving as Special Representative of the President and Secretary of State on Holocaust-Era Issues. During the Obama, Biden, and Trump administrations, he was the Special Advisor on Holocaust Issues to the Secretary of State—a position he still holds, negotiating billions of dollars of recoveries from foreign corporations and governments on behalf of survivors and families of victims, as well as the Washington Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art with 44 nations in 1998, the Terezin Declaration in 2009 with 47 nations, and the Best Practices on Implementing the Washington Principles with 35 nations, which have led to the return of tens of thousands of Nazi–looted artworks, books, and Jewish cultural and religious objects. 

As pro bono Special Negotiator for the Jewish Claims Conference since 2009, Ambassador Eizenstat has negotiated with the German government for an additional ten billion dollars of compensation and social services for survivors, with an increasing emphasis on home care for older, poor Holocaust survivors and on worldwide Holocaust education. He chairs the board of the Defiant Requiem Foundation, honoring the memory of the musicians and artists at the Theresienstadt concentration camp. He is co-chair with Ambassador Dennis Ross of the Jewish People’s Policy Institute in Jerusalem. He has received eight honorary doctorates and over 80 awards, including the Museum’s highest award, and from the governments of France (two Legions of Honor), Germany, Austria, Belgium, Israel, and the United States, the Great Negotiator Award from Harvard Law School, and the Leading Lawyer in Washington, DC, by the Legal Times. 

He has authored four books: Imperfect Justice: Looted Assets, Slave Labor and the Unfinished Business of World War II; The Future of the Jews: How Global Forces are Impacting the Jewish People, Israel, and Its Relationship with the United States; President Carter: The White House Years; and his most recent book The Art of Diplomacy: How American Negotiators Reached Historic Agreements That Changed the World. 

He is a Phi Beta Kappa, cum laude graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which created the Ambassador Stuart E. Eizenstat Chair of Modern Jewish History, and of Harvard Law School. He is a senior member of Covington and Burling LLP’s international practice. 

Born in Nazi-occupied Poland in 1940, Mr. Foxman survived the Holocaust as a child because he was  sheltered by his Catholic nanny, who risked her own life to save his. The experience of being marked for death simply because he was Jewish—and the courage and moral clarity of the woman who protected him—inspired his lifelong, tireless efforts to combat antisemitism, his conviction that every human life is imbued with dignity and worth, and his commitment to the security of the State of Israel.

He was deeply engaged in preserving the memory of the Holocaust, educating people about its continuing relevance, and honoring those rare individuals who rescued Jews. A strong conviction about our common humanity and the extraordinary opportunities that American pluralism offered Jews and other marginalized communities animated his life and work. He was the only member of the Museum’s governing Council to be appointed by four presidents from both parties—Presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton, and Biden. 

In his many decades of exceptional leadership of the Anti-Defamation League, Mr. Foxman transformed it into a leading global institution, engaging political and religious leaders in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and the Americas, using his singular voice to champion human dignity and the safety and security of the Jewish people worldwide. 

He also played a key role in advocating for hate crime legislation in the United States. As the National Director of ADL, he helped expand the influence of the organization’s model hate crime statute—more than 40 states and the District of Columbia enacted laws inspired by this—and later led coalition efforts that supported the passage of a landmark federal hate crimes legislation.

He wrote several books: Jews and Money: The Story of a Stereotype; The Deadliest Lies: The Israel Lobby and the Myth of Jewish Control; and Never Again? The Threat of the New Antisemitism. And he co-authored Viral Hate: Containing Its Spread on the Internet. 

Mr. Foxman received numerous awards, honorary doctorates, and honors recognizing his lifelong devotion to human rights, including Austria’s Grand Decoration of Honor in Gold, the Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, the French Legion of Honor award, the Interfaith Committee of Remembrance Lifetime Achievement Award, Medal of Grand Officer of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, the Raoul Wallenberg Humanitarian Leadership Award, and in 2021 he was honored in the annual congressional tribute for Jewish American Heritage Month. He earned a BA from City College of New York and a JD degree from New York University School of Law and pursued graduate work at The New School for Social Research and the Jewish Theological Seminary.

Following his retirement from ADL, he founded and served as the inaugural director of the Center for the Study of Antisemitism at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York, and he continued to advocate publicly and privately for the issues to which he devoted his life. Mr. Foxman leaves an extraordinary legacy that is an inspiration to everyone who shares his commitment to confronting antisemitism and hatred in all its forms and to promoting the dignity of all people.