Adam Milstein: The Past is Not Far From the Future

While Adam Milstein’s day job is being a commercial real estate agent as a partner at Hager Pacific Properties, he also dedicates a vast amount of time and energy into philanthropic work, especially if it has to do with the Israeli-American and/or Jewish communities. Together, Adam Milstein and his wife, Gila, founded the Adam and Gila Milstein Foundation. The foundation is dedicated to lending support to organizations who support the Jewish people, U.S-Israel relationships, and the State of Israel.

In addition to these roles, Adam Milstein co-founded and is the chair of the Israeli-American Council’s national expansion. He is on the board of several Jewish and/or Israeli organizations that, include, Israel on Campus Coalition, Jewish Funders Network, and, among others, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee National Council.

All of these roles surly keep Milstein busy, however, he takes on an additional role as a writer for Jewish News Syndicate. Here, he primarily writes to lend support, raise awareness, give advice, and even instruct the Israeli communities both in the United States and in the State of Israel.

Recently, Adam Milstein and his wife had the opportunity to travel to six different countries learning about the Holocaust. Throughout their travels they attempted, without success, to understand the horrendous genocide that Nazi Germany and the European counterpart committed on the Jewish people. They saw the atrocious conditions in which the Jewish people suffered; they visited mass graves where thousands of Jewish people were put to death.

Upon their return, Milstein made an important realization. While, for now, it is certainly on a different level, anti-Semitism still exists today, and it could be only a matter of time before it exists at the same level as during the Holocaust. These realizations caused Milstein to realize three lessons.

First, genocides, like the Holocaust, do not happen overnight. Instead, they happen in a process of racism, discrimination, and intimidation, that span across many years. Milstein argues, that these same anti-Semitic attitudes are very much alive and present today.

Second, Milstein says that the Jewish and Israeli communities must stand up against anti-Semitic ideologies. Luckily, in America, the Jewish people have the opportunity to speak out and fight back and they need to take advantage of those rights while they can.

Third, he believes it is critical that Jewish communities lend their support to Israel because it is their insurance policy. Since its creation, Israel has served as a place of respite for Jews who face the harsh threats of anti-Semitic ideologies.

It is the horrific events of the past that have to be turned into lessons for the future. It is the Jewish and Israeli populations responsibility to ensure that what happened during the Holocaust never happens again.