While the future of Warner Bros. Discovery is currently the talk of Hollywood, CEO David Zaslav was recognized at the Simon Wiesenthal Centers Humanitarian Award Dinner on Thursday in front of a room full of power players.

David Ellison, Ted Sarandos (who Zaslav shouted out as one of the great guys), Apples Eddy Cue, David Geffen, Bryan Lourd, Irving Azoff, Jason Blum and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft all turned up at the Beverly Hills event, just days after WBD publicly acknowledged that the company is for sale. Ellison and Sarandos spent much of the dinner hour in close conversation, while personalized congratulations notes to Zaslav from Paramount, Disney, Sony and NBCUniversal flashed across screens inside the Beverly Wilshire ballroom. Jeffrey Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg were both on hard to present Zaslav with the nights Humanitarian Award recognizing the execs philanthropic efforts and work fighting antisemitism along with video messages of support from Kraft, Azoff, Ari Emanuel, Gloria Steinem, Wolf Blitzer, Graydon Carter and Oprah; Emanuel revealed during the video that he is on a text thread with Kraft and Zaslav, where each Friday they message about that weeks reading from the Torah.

Spielberg began his presentation by playing a clip from Casablanca and reflecting on the early days of Warner Bros., particularly in releasing the first anti-Nazi film from an American studio in 1939.

They felt a responsibility to history and did not hesitate to take up the fight, famed filmmaker said. In many ways, David shares a certain ethos with the moguls that built Hollywood. The two have been friends for 20 years through their work with the Shoah Foundation, and in 2015 they traveled together to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz with Holocaust survivors and their families.

As time goes by and your successes have grown, we are lucky and grateful that you remain a dreamer with the heart of a fighter, a mensch you can count on to be a raised voice for justice and morality, and a heroic warrior against the dark forces of antisemitism, Spielberg continued, declaring that David Zaslav sticks his neck out for everybody.

The CEO then took the stage the stage by thanking Spielberg (for being there for me as I took on this giant challenge of Warner Bros. and HBO, with so much I didnt know, and your help has been tremendous) and acknowledged that I dont normally do these kind of things, but I thought this was an important moment for me to stand up and be very clear about who I am. He went on to explain that he is a Jewish man whose family escaped persecution in Poland and fled to America, where everyone gets their chance for their best life. Now we need to fight to make sure that is true in good times and in bad.

Later in his speech, Zaslav recalled how 15 years ago his company acquired a broadcast network and news channel in Poland, which offered the only alternative to state-run news. Years later, a right-wing party was elected and tried to censor the news and shut the network down. When the government controls the news, that is the end of democracy, he said, noting that they fought back for eight years until a new government was elected. He added, Storytelling can be more powerful than armies

Zaslav acknowledged his execs Casey Bloys, Channing Dungey and Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy, who were in attendance, saying, Someday, years from now, our legacy will not be the profits that we made, itll be the stories that we told. He continued that tentpoles and sequels are great, and theyre great for business, but we need to tell original stories. We need to tell our stories. This is our time. Our time is not going to last forever, not for any of us.

He closed by saying that his family history serves as a reminder to tell the stories and fight for ideals that keep us safe and free, even when its hard.

The evening raised $4.3 million in support of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and also honored CNNs Dana Bash with the Jewish Heritage Award, who joked that it says a lot that being a proud Jew gets you an award. Aya Meydan and Omer Shem Tov, the latter of whom was held hostage by Hamas for 505 days following the Oct. 7 attack, were additionally presented with Medals of Valor.