On May 25, 2023, the administration of US President Joe Biden unveiled The U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism. President Biden called his administration's plan the “most ambitious and comprehensive U.S. government-led effort to fight antisemitism in American history.”
Background
A number of high-profile incidents targeting the Jewish community in 2022, such as rapper Kanye West's Holocaust denial and praise of Adolf Hitler, led to increased calls for public policy actions to confront rising antisemitism in the United States. On December 5, 2022, 125 members of the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate, both Republicans and Democrats, sent a letter to President Biden calling for a whole-of-government interagency task force to confront antisemitism, led by an assistant secretary. At a U.S. Senate hearing in November, FBI Director Chris Wray and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas had previously expressed support for a national strategy to combat antisemitism.
The following day, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff hosted a roundtable on antisemitism at the White House with representatives from Jewish organizations such as the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, American Jewish Committee, National Council of Jewish Women, Anti-Defamation League, Agudath Israel of America and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
The White House subsequently announced on December 12 the formation of the Interagency Policy Committee on Antisemitism, Islamophobia, and Related Forms of Bias and Discrimination coordinated by the Domestic Policy Council and the United States National Security Council to "address antisemitism and other forms of religious bigotry." The group's first task would be a national strategy to combat antisemitism.
Policies
The plan offers four core pillars designed to address the leading threats to Jews today. The first pillar is aimed at increasing awareness and understanding of antisemitism. This component contains an increased emphasis on Holocaust education, and President Biden requested that Congress approve his $73 million budget, which will be used to bolster the Department of Education's civics and history courses.
The plan's second pillar seeks to improve the security and safety of Jewish communities through increased security funding and promotion of better dialogue between law enforcement and Jewish community leaders. The third pillar strives to reverse the “normalization” of antisemitism, particularly on social media platforms. The administration proposes that social media companies create clear terms of service that have no tolerance for any form of hate speech targeted at Jewish people. The fourth component of the plan encourages solidarity among members of different faiths, minorities, and sexual orientations, who have all been the targets of discrimination. Over the course of the 60-page report, the U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism goes into further detail about how its authors believe each of these pillars will have a positive effect on Jewish life in the United States.
Reception
The strategy was met with both praise and criticism from Jewish community leaders. Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt was pleased that the Biden administration initiative specifically addresses antisemitism from online sources and on college campuses – and that it recognizes threats from both the far left and far right. More than thirty Jewish organizations, including AIPAC, B'nai B'rith International, and the JCC Association of North America, voiced their support of the Biden administration's plan as they remarked in a joint statement: “In an era of rising antisemitism in the U.S. and around the world, we appreciate the clarity and urgency demonstrated by the White House in releasing its National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism.”