Former Vice President Mike Pence will deliver the keynote address at The Institute for Faith & Freedom (IFF) 2024 Conference “Confronting Antisemitism.”
Pence will address the conference at 11 a.m. Thursday, April 11 in Crawford Hall Auditorium.
“We are thankful for the opportunity to hear from Vice President Mike Pence on this critically important topic. He has been very vocal in confronting antisemitism, and we are pleased to welcome him to campus,” Grove City College President Paul J. McNulty ’80 said.
“Serving in the Trump administration, he was part of significant U.S. actions that brokered the first peace deal in the Middle East in 25 years, the Abraham Accords. In 2018, the administration moved the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Although the scope of this conference is broader than the nation of Israel, Vice President Pence and his leadership throughout his career make him an excellent choice to speak this year,” McNulty said.
One of America’s foremost Christian political leaders, Pence served in Congress and as governor of Indiana before serving as the nation’s vice president from 2017 to 2021 under President Donald J. Trump. He spoke at Grove City College’s commencement in 2017.
Antisemitism, the irrational hatred of Jews, goes back centuries, perhaps millennia, and has proven to be a persistent pathology with horrific impacts, from blood libel to the Holocaust to the present day. This year’s IFF conference will bring some of the country’s leading conservative thinkers and scholars and College faculty together to discuss the roots and disturbing resurgence of antisemitism since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel and the war in Gaza.
“In many quarters, Israel found itself not a source of sympathy, a victim, but a focus of anger and accusations. Protests erupted in many countries, including the United States, often directed at Israel rather than Hamas,” IFF Senior Director Robert Rider said. “Most disturbing, there has been an eruption of protests against Israel on college campuses, accompanied by a troubling rise in antisemitism. It is most certainly something that Christians everywhere should condemn.”
In addition to Pence, the conference will feature a diverse lineup of speakers confronting antisemitism, including Rabbi Dr. Meir Y. Soloveichik, senior rabbi of Congregation Shearith Israel and one of the world’s preeminent Jewish thinkers and educators.
Other thought leaders who will address the conference are Paul Packer, former chairman United States Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad; Michael Medved, talk radio and podcast host and New York Times best-selling author; Naomi Schaefer Riley, writer and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute; Devorah Goldman, Tikvah Visiting Fellow with the Ethics and Public Policy Center; and George Weigel, Catholic theologian, papal biographer, and syndicated columnist.
Grove City College faculty members Dr. Paul Kengor, professor of Political Science and IFF senior director and chief academic fellow, and Dr. Carl Trueman, professor of Biblical and Religious Studies, will also take the conference stage.
For a complete schedule or to register for the conference, visit faithandfreedom.com. Registration is required.
The Institute for Faith & Freedom is Grove City College’s conservative think tank, which is committed to the vision of America’s founding and the College’s Christian values.