By Alan Wolf
The AVB|BrandSource team was on the scene earlier this season for the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL’s) annual Awards Tribute and National Home Furnishings Industry Dinner in New York.
Honorees included former Serta Simmons Bedding CEO Michael Traub, who received the ADL’s Humanitarian Award; The Gefen Company president Ellen Gefen, who accepted an American Heritage Award; and Simon Kaplan, the 95-year-old founder, chairman and CEO of Crest Furniture, parent of the Value City furniture chain, who received a Lifetime Achievement Award.
The event drew a who’s who of furniture industry luminaries and helped raise over $1 million to help the ADL in its mission of ending bigotry and discrimination. A highlight of the evening was an on-stage chat with Tony McAleer, a former member of the White Aryan Resistance and co-founder of Life After Hate. “Society has lost its way and needs to be more compassionate,” he told the crowd, noting that the anonymity of the Internet is helping to feed the rancor.
McAleer added that fighting bigotry begins at home. “At Thanksgiving dinner, tell your uncle ‘That joke’s not cool,” he said.
YSN is published by BrandSource parent company AVB Inc.
