The Simon Wiesenthal Center is clear and unambiguous in the call to action contained in its March 16, 2018 press release: Political leaders and national media must call out Louis Farrakhan for his Anti-Semitism.

In 2011 the Simon Wiesenthal Center awarded Tom Cruise its highest honor which is the Humanitarian Award. There was a public outcry inasmuch as Tom Cruise belonged to the Church of Scientology, a group defined by its inhumanity.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center was informed by every means possible that the Church of Scientology had partnered with Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam. The Wiesenthal Center refused to see that in giving Tom Cruise a medal it was, by extension, engaging in willful ignorance concerning  the Church of Scientology and its strategic partnership with the Nation of Islam.

Rabbi Heir, the Dean and founder of the Wiesenthal Center, defended the award to Tom Cruise by declaring, “We should not engage in any guilt by association… We’ve given a medal of valor to the Pope. Does that mean we agree with everything the church has done? No.” Writer Danielle Berrin noted that Rabbi Heir was “focusing on Cruise-the-individual, not Cruise-the Scientology missionary.” We personally don’t buy these arguments as they negate the precept of collective responsibility, a core teaching of Judaism. While Tom Cruise is not Anti-Semitic, he has never once publicly denounced the Anti-Semitism of his fellow Scientologist Louis Farrakhan. Why does Cruise remain silent given his award from the Simon Wiesenthal Center? It appears that Cruise simply used the Wiesenthal Center for PR reasons. We say this because Cruise has not taken any affirmative actions to fight the Anti-Semitism within Scientology’s own ranks.

To argue that Tom Cruise shares no moral or collective responsibility for the Church of Scientology and its partnership with the Nation of Islam is a bogus argument, particularly given Tom Cruise’s public and financial support of the Church of Scientology beginning after 911 and continuing through his 2011 award from the Wiesenthal Center. Tom Cruise publicly and profanely attacked Scientology’s critics during a Rolling Stone interview in 2004. Rolling Stone’s Neil Strauss wrote in his piece The Passion of the Cruise:

Since Scientology, in the popular imagination, is such a loaded word — often associated with heavy-handed recruitment tactics, strong-arm-lawyer assaults and steep membership and course fees — one would think that Cruise wouldn’t be so willing to take a journalist through that world.

“Who are those people that say those things?” Cruise asks when I bring it up over lunch one day. “Because I promise you, it isn’t everybody. But I look at those people and I say, ‘Bring it. I’m a Scientologist, man. What do you want to know?” I don’t mind answering questions.”

He lists some of Scientology’s selling points: its drug-abuse, prison-rehabilitation and education programs. “Some people, well, if they don’t like Scientology, well, then, fuck you.” He rises from the table. “Really.” He points an angry finger at the imaginary enemy. “Fuck you.” His face reddens. “Period.”

The Simon Wiesenthal Center knew all of this, was informed of it in 2011, and nevertheless chose to ignore the evidence.

At the time of the Simon Wiesenthal’s award to Tom Cruise award in 2011, many of us who are critics of Scientology informed the Simon Wiesenthal Center about the Church of Scientology’s brutality and inhumanity and its relationship to Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam. Our calls and e-mails fell on deaf ears and were instead met with the Center’s defense of its award to Tom Cruise.

Here’s what the Simon Wiesenthal Center can do if it is serious about Louis Farrakhan:

1. The Simon Wiesenthal Center must publicly call out David Miscavige and the Church of Scientology International for doing absolutely nothing to stop Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam in spreading Anti-Semitism. Scientology has never once issued a press release stating that it abhors Anti-Semitism. Scientology remains completely silent about Farrakhan’s Anti-Semitism when he is in fact a Scientologist and has praised L. Ron Hubbard numerous times. Likewise, Farrakhan’s top lieutenant Tony Muhammad has praised L. Ron Hubbard even as he has spread Farrakhan’s message of Anti-Semitism.

2. The Simon Wiesenthal Center must publicly demand that Scientology leader David Miscavige declare Louis Farrakhan a Suppressive Person for preaching and teaching Anti-Semitism. Farrakhan’s Anti-Semitism violates Scientology’s incessant calls for religious tolerance. Now is the time when the Church of Scientology has to actually put its call for tolerance into action by declaring Mr. Farrakhan an SP. Failing to do so is an admission that Scientology’s call for tolerance is nothing more than hollow words and empty PR. The STAND League either means something or it does not, in which case STAND is a fraud.

3. The Simon Wiesenthal Center must publicly demand that Scientology leader David Miscavige order the Church of Scientology International to revoke any and all licenses to the Nation of Islam to practice and deliver Dianetics and Scientology. The reason for the revocation would be Anti-Semitism. The Church of Scientology International should not allow an Anti-Semitic group to have, use, or deliver the materials of Dianetics and Scientology.

4. The Simon Wiesenthal Center should ask, and expect, its honoree Tom Cruise to personally intervene in this matter and present the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s case against Louis Farrakhan to Scientology leader David Miscavige.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center has to take the initiative here by going on the offense and calling out the Church of Scientology for its support of Louis Farrakhan. Press releases aren’t working. The Church of Scientology has leverage over Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam and should be called upon to use that leverage to curb Farrakhan’s Anti-Semitism.

The Simon Wiesenthal centers enjoys tremendous prestige and its supporters include some of the most wealthy and powerful people in the world. The Center can ask its supporters to support the call for the Church of Scientology to do something about Louis Farrakhan’s Anti-Semitism.