“On Yom HaShoah, we look back at the darkest chapter of human history. We mourn, we remember, we pray, and we pledge: Never again. I say it, never again. The mind cannot fathom the pain, the horror, and the loss. Six million Jews, two-thirds of the Jews in Europe, murdered by the Nazi genocide. They were murdered by an evil that words cannot describe, and that the human heart cannot bear."

This message was delivered by US President Donald Trump in a video address to the World Jewish Congress (WJC) Plenary Assembly which opened Sunday in New York on the occasion of Yom HoShoah, Israel’s day of remembrance for the victims and heroes of the Holocaust..

He pledged to stand firm against hatred of Jews and terrorism: “We must stamp out prejudice and anti-Semitism everywhere it is found. We must defeat terrorism, and we must not ignore the threats of a regime that talks openly of Israel’s destruction. We cannot let that ever even be thought of."

Quoting Theodor Herzl’s “If you will, it is no dream”, Trump added that Israel is a “great nation that has risen from the desert”.

More than 600 Jewish community representatives from some 90 countries around the world are attending this week’s WJC’s Plenary Assembly, the supreme decision-making body of the World Jewish Congress, which was founded in Geneva in 1936.

Over the course of the three-day assembly, delegates will hear reports about the situation of Jewish communities world-wide and discuss major issues, including anti-Semitism and the rise of extremist political movements. A WJC-commissioned report will be presented that details the proliferation anti-Semitism on the internet, and policies to combat such phenomena will be discussed. The delegates will also elect the WJC leadership for the coming four-year term. Current WJC President Ronald S. Lauder is standing for re-election.

Speakers at the gathering include UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova and European Commission Coordinator on Combating Anti-Semitism Katharina von Schnurbein.