This year’s Lamplighter Awards ceremony, which honored both the CEO of Palantir and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries on Sept. 16, served as a guiding light for the Jewish community in challenging times, according to Rabbi Levi Shemtov.
The annual event hosted by American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad) since 1997 aims to recognize “individuals of distinction” and strengthen the Washington, D.C., community and beyond.
The 2025 Lamplighter Awards honorees were Alex Karp, the CEO and co-founder of Palantir Technologies, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both of whom have “distinguished themselves” in terms of support for the Jewish community and Israel, said Shemtov, the executive vice president of American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad).
“Each honoree was recognized for the unique ways they have strengthened and supported the Jewish community through their leadership, generosity and unwavering dedication,” John F. Fish, the event chair and 2023 Lamplighter Award honoree, said.
“Dr. Alex Karp and Hakeem Jeffries, each in their own way, have used their vast resources and abilities to assure that they and so many people they impact are on the right side of history and do not allow the lurking antisemitism and evil to prevail,” Shemtov said.
In 2005, Karp co-founded Palantir, a data analysis company that allows people to collaborate with artificial intelligence. He described Palantir as a company “committed to combating bigotry.”
In December 2023, Palantir announced an initiative to hire students who “feared for their safety or were concerned about antisemitism” on their college campuses, according to the website. Karp set out to reserve 180 job positions for these students, and later expanded the initiative. He publicly criticized university leaders’ responses to antisemitism.
Palantir, which provides AI models to Israel’s military, partners with the Israeli Ministry of Defense to technologically “help the war effort,” according to a January 2024 LinkedIn post by Palantir Technologies.
Karp, the son of a Jewish father, according to The New York Times, has met with United States senators to push for support for Israel and the safe release of the hostages in Gaza. He’s also been vocal about speaking up against antisemitism.
“After the dinner, he explained that people have to take more positions of influence and stand up against what people are doing, not be silent because it might make you uncomfortable,” Shemtov recalled. “I found his call for people to be willing to leave their comfort zones once in a while in order to give humanity a fighting chance at saving itself to be quite selfless.”
Chabad honored Jeffries with the 2025 Leadership Award for his support for Israel.
“Jeffries has been a steadying voice in a very traumatic and turbulent time for the Jewish community, and [someone] I believe, particularly now as the Democratic Party is experiencing unprecedented unrest in regard to Israel [and] the Jewish community, who has kept things from going off cliffs, in my opinion,” Shemtov said.
Shemtov said he appreciates the fact that Jeffries and his leadership team attended Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress in July 2024 when nearly half of the House and Senate Democrats chose not to.
Lamplighter Award honorees receive a menorah “because we believe a menorah is a symbol of illumination,” Shemtov said. Karp’s gift was an original printing of the first edition of “Man’s Search for Meaning,” a book by Austrian Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl, inspired by his experiences in Nazi concentration camps.
Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a 23-year-old who was killed in captivity in Gaza, had used that book’s message to inspire fellow hostages to persevere despite the immense challenges they faced.
“I heard one of the hostages speak recently, where he said it’s because of [Goldberg-Polin] that he was able to survive,” Shemtov said. “That message resonated with him and took him through his toughest days.”
Rachel Goldberg-Polin, Hersh’s mother, introduced Karp at the awards ceremony.
“Alex Karp is carrying that message of ‘Man’s Search for Meaning,’ which is to strengthen the ‘why,’ so we can find the ‘how’ in today’s environment where people are lost and need to have that galvanized approach so that we can prevail,” Shemtov said. “Dr. Karp has a Ph.D. in philosophy. For him to receive this [book] from one of the preeminent Jewish psychologists of the last generation with a message of hope for the darkest times, I thought, was very relevant.
“When we give a platform to voices that are strengthening us, when people come to an event and see over 50 House and Senate leaders from both parties and members and ambassadors and senior diplomats, it shows a certain support,” Shemtov said.
While he originally planned to seat about 330 attendees, more than 500 people ended up registering for the event, prompting Shemtov to hold the awards ceremony at Main Hall at Union Station rather than the East Hall.
The event was a resounding success, according to Shemtov and Fish.
“A very prominent Jewish leader wrote to me, ‘What happened in Washington tonight [at the dinner] gave courage not only to those present, but to Jews everywhere, who saw that we have not lost the will to stand tall, to celebrate who we are and do so with joy,’” Shemtov said. “‘Thank you for reminding us in this time of challenge what it feels like to be part of a people that refuses despair and chooses hope.’”
