FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NEW YORK, May 3, 2024—Last night Ronald S. Lauder was honored by The New Criterion with the eleventh Edmund Burke Award for Service to Culture and Society at a gala dinner at the Metropolitan Club in New York City. TheEdmund Burke Award celebrates individuals who have made conspicuous contributions to the defense of civilization. A leading philanthropist, art connoisseur, and businessman, Lauder has done much to enhance the cultural life of his fellow New Yorkers and, through his work as president of the World Jewish Congress and through his Anti-Semitism Accountability Project (ASAP), has advanced the cultural understanding of Jews and gentiles around the world. Among other achievements, he founded the Neue Galerie on New York’s Upper East Side in 2001, a world-class museum of early twentieth-century German and Austrian Art and a champion of cultural restitution from the Second World War, most famously in the case of Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I. During the dinner, Lauder delivered remarks on “Protecting America’s Promise,” a version of which will be published in the June 2024 issue of The New Criterion.
“We first approached Ronald about this event in September of last year,” said Editor and Publisher Roger Kimball in his introduction, “just before the October 7 slaughter of some 1,200 Israeli civilians by the Iran-funded Sunni Muslim terrorist organization Hamas.” Noting the subsequent conflagration of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel protests at college campuses across the country, as well as the tepid responses of many university presidents, Kimball pointed out that Lauder was one of the first major donors last fall to withdraw financial support from his alma mater, the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, for its negligence.
“But what we are witnessing on our campuses now,” Kimball continued, “is not just anti-Semitism. Really, it is the disturbing recrudescence of a snarling, anti-civilizational hatred, the objects of which are incidentally Jews and Israel, but more broadly are America and ‘the West’ generally. . . . There is a reason that the chant ‘Death to Israel’ is regularly followed by ‘Death to America.’”
“Where does this end?” Kimball asked in conclusion. “At stake is not just the fate of American higher education, but the very texture of American society as a whole. . . . This latest, sanguinary assault on the future has dramatically upped the ante.” He then turned the floor over to Lauder, to “provide a welcome path through these dark times.”
In his speech, Lauder was clear about the stakes: “Right now, we are living through one of the darkest hours in our nation’s history. . . . We have enemies who want to change and weaken America, with the ultimate aim of destroying our way of life, our place on the world stage, our freedom here at home. If we don’t stop them, they may succeed.”
But Lauder also expressed optimism for the future, acknowledging that hard work will be necessary: “Just as Americans who came before us did their part, we must now do ours. People make a big mistake when they look at our great achievements and assume they were always here. They were not. They had to be created, maintained, and defended by generations of Americans.”
A full account of Lauder’s remarks will be available in the magazine’s June 2024 issue, to be published online May 22.
James Panero, Executive Editor of The New Criterion, struck a note of gratitude for Lauder’s work: “In this, of all years, we are so proud to be honoring you here tonight, for what you do for art, for New York, for America, for Judeo-Christian values, and for our allies in the Jewish state.”
Panero added a few words about the importance of the publication: “I accuse: if there ever was a mantra for The New Criterion, this might be it. For over forty years, this publication has been pointing a finger at the degradation of our society. When it comes to cleaning out the encampments in our institutions, The New Criterion is a time-tested astringent. Now, finally, the rest of the world is sensing the rot. Your presence here tonight, in our most attended gala to date, gives us strength in the work of recuperation.”
The sold-out gala dinner welcomed more than 260 supporters, a record number for The New Criterion, and raised over $500,000 to benefit the publication. The award, which was first presented to Dr. Henry Kissinger in 2012, pays homage to the legacy of Edmund Burke, the eighteenth-century political philosopher. Other honorees include Donald Kagan (2014), Ayaan Hirsi Ali (2016), Philippe de Montebello (2017), Victor Davis Hanson (2018), Larry P. Arnn (2022), and Peter Thiel (2023).
Among those supporting the 2024 gala were Brian & Amy Anderson, Larry P. Arnn, Carmen C. Bambach, Stephen J. Blackwood, Mary Ellen Bork, the William H. Donner Foundation, the Gale Foundation, George Gilder, Solveig Lucia Gold & Joshua T. Katz, Kenneth C. Griffin, Roger C. Hertog, Heather & James Higgins, Richard R. Hough III, Anna Khachiyan, Thomas Klingenstein, Ken & Elaine Langone, Philippe & Edith de Montebello, James Meeks, Larry & Kathleen Mone, Dasha Nekrasova, Alison Manges Noguiera, Peter Pennoyer, Sally Pipes, Renée Price, Roger Ream, R. R. Reno, James Taranto & Ian Wardropper.
ABOUT The New Criterion (newcriterion.com)
Edited and published by Roger Kimball, The New Criterion is a monthly, New York–based journal of artistic and cultural criticism. It was founded in 1982 by Hilton Kramer, formerly the chief art critic for The New York Times, and Samuel Lipman, a pianist and music critic. The journal draws its name from The Criterion, a British literary magazine edited by T. S. Eliot from 1922 to 1939. Since its inception, The New Criterion has featured incisive commentary on art, architecture, theater, music, dance, poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and more.
The magazine has been home to many of the finest minds in culture, including William F. Buckley Jr., Anthony Daniels, Joseph Epstein, Dana Gioia, Dominic Green, Victor Davis Hanson, Joshua T. Katz, Charles R. Kesler, Adam Kirsch, William Logan, Gary Saul Morson, Joseph Rago, Roger Scruton, John Simon, and Karen Wilkin.
The Times Literary Supplement has said “The New Criterion is probably more consistently worth reading than any other magazine in English.” The Wall Street Journal added that “it operates as a refuge for a civilizing element in short supply in contemporary America: honest criticism” and calls The New Criterion “the best art magazine and a provocative force in other cultural areas.”
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