Eradicate Hate Global Summit begins Oct. 21
Fighting hateAnnual summit at David L. Lawrence Convention Center

Eradicate Hate Global Summit begins Oct. 21

This year’s keynote speaker is Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, homeland security adviser to the White House.

Eradicate Hate Global Summit 2022 welcomed nearly 260 thought leaders. 
(Photo by Adam Reinherz)
Eradicate Hate Global Summit 2022 welcomed nearly 260 thought leaders. (Photo by Adam Reinherz)

More than 1,000 people from around the world are expected to gather at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center downtown from Oct. 21-23 to share ideas and tools to combat the proliferation of hate.

The fourth annual Eradicate Hate Global Summit will bring together experts and leaders from a variety of disciplines to strategize on ending hate-fueled violence, according to summit officials.

Summit founder and board co-Chair Laura Ellsworth conceived of the summit as a response to the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, when a gunman stormed the Tree of Life building and murdered 11 people from three congregations as they were praying on Shabbat.

Since the first summit in 2021, the event has reached beyond that antisemitc incident to challenge various forms of hate wherever they occur.

“We knew this problem extended beyond the borders of Pittsburgh,” Ellsworth told the Chronicle last year. “We wanted to be able to prevent this kind of violence, whether it happened in our community or in anybody else’s community.”

A hallmark of Eradicate Hate is its ongoing Working Group structure, which “incentivizes experts to work collaboratively across disciplines, across institutions, and across borders between each annual gathering, to deliver actual, lasting, and measurable change,” according to the summit’s website.

At each annual summit, the Working Groups present the results of their work over the past year and determine their work for the year ahead.

Local experts, including Maggie Feinstein of the 10.27 Healing Partnership and the Rev. Liddy Barlow, executive minister of Christian Associates of Southwest Pennsylvania, will join national authorities such as Arthur Ago of the Southern Poverty Law Center and James Pasch, senior director of national litigation for the Anti-Defamation League, to present on a variety of panels throughout the three-day event.

This year’s keynote speaker is Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, homeland security adviser to the White House.

Among the many sessions offered, topics covered include: “Follow the Money: Disrupting Hate Financing”; “Students Diffusing Hate on Campus”; “From Tragedy to Transformation: Shaping Responsible Media Coverage”; and “Crafting Caring Conversations in Conflict,” which will address navigating dialogue about the Hamas/Israel war.

“We all felt our communities torn apart after the events on 10/7 and all of the responses following,” said Brette Steele, president of Eradicate Hate Global Summit, in a YouTube video promoting the summit. “We’ve all seen the two assassination attempts against the former president of the United States. And we’ve all heard stories and know students on college campuses who don’t feel safe walking to class. So the summit exists to meet those moments where they’re at and give anyone, no matter who you are, the tools you need to be able to navigate those moments.”

The Summit starts on Monday, Oct. 21, at the David Lawrence Convention Center. To register, go to: ehgs.configio.com. PJC

Toby Tabachnick can be reached at ttabachnick@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

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