While accepting the Humanitarian Award at the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s annual dinner last night, Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein called on Jews to fight back against anti-Semitism “and kick these guys in the ass,” The Hollywood Reporter reported.

Weinstein, 63, then went off-script to speak about his father, who was a sergeant stationed in Cairo during World War II. The elder Weinstein aided the Haganah (the precursor to the IDF before Israel was a state) and later taught his sons about anti-Semitism. Weinstein emphasized his concern about anti-Semitism around the world, which Wiesenthal Center studies indicate is at its highest levels since the end of World War II.

“I’m upset when I read The Atlantic Monthly’s headline that says, ‘Should the Jews leave Europe?’ — a resounding ‘no’ on my end — and [New York Times columnist] David Brooks today talking about how to combat anti-Semitism,” Weinstein said. “It’s like, here we go again, we’re right back where we were [before the Holocaust]. And the lessons of the past are we better stand up and kick these guys in the ass.”

The co-head of The Weinstein Company continued, “I think it’s time that we, as Jews, get together with the Muslims who are honorable and peaceful — but we [also] have to go and protect ourselves. We have to build, once again, back into the breach. There’s a quote from Kurt Vonnegut’s book The Sirens of Titan and it always was the motto of Miramax and now The Weinstein Company. It says, ‘Good can triumph over evil if the angels are as organized as the mafia.’ That’s how we built our company! And, unfortunately, we [Jews] are gonna have to get as organized as the mafia. We just can’t take it anymore. We just can’t take these things. There’s gotta be a way to fight back.”

Weinstein had been introduced by fellow producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, who cited a number of incidents of hate that had been in the news.

Throughout the time, the need for the work of the [Simon Wiesenthal C]enter has always been great. But I believe that, right now today, the need is greater than ever. Intolerance seems to be spreading like an incredibly dangerous virus — a virus that far too often is lethal.” He listed a “sampling of events” over the past year — rockets fired randomly on towns and schools in Israel, the murder of 21 Christian Egyptians in Libya and the “gruesome spectacle of beheadings by terrorists afraid to show their faces but proud to post videos of every horrific detail on the Internet.”

The David Brooks column cited by Weinstein identified anti-Semitism as a “core element” of the worldview of Iran’s leadership.

[Photo: Zurich Film Festival / YouTube ]