(Jewish Group) Opinion: President Biden has taken a vital step to counter antisemitism in America

[Behind the Aegis]

Last week, the White House announced its National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism. This first-of-its-kind initiative could not come at a more opportune time. There were a record number of antisemitic incidents worldwide in 2021, according to an annual survey conducted by Tel Aviv University’s Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry and the US-based Anti-Defamation League. Results of the latest survey, released last month, showed that the problem not only persisted, but intensified in the US in 2022.

This is not an abstract issue for me. When the Nazis occupied Hungary, it resulted in the murder of more than half a million Hungarian Jews. My grandfather, seeing what was happening and seeing fellow Jews being rounded up and deported, helped as much of his family and as many as he could to use false papers to conceal their Jewish identity and avoid being liquidated. My father, George Soros, lost family members in the Holocaust. And for him, those experiences — of being “the other,” of being hated for something that he couldn’t control — helped fuel his philanthropic career, and his dedication to help others fight for a life free from fear. The stain of antisemitism helped influence my own philanthropic work as a founding member of the board of Bend the Arc Jewish Action, the first-ever national Jewish political action committee with an exclusive focus on domestic issues.

My father’s fight for democracy and human rights has made him a target of unspeakable attacks, in the US and around the world. Former President Donald Trump closed his 2016 campaign with an ad featuring my father and several other high-profile American Jewish figures, using well-worn dog-whistle language about “global special interests.” In Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orban launched a poster campaign in 2018 falsely accusing my father of wanting to flood the country with migrants, drawing on imagery from the 1930s.

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[JustAnotherGen]

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2. Biden-⁠Harris Administration Releases First-Ever U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism

This is evidently the policy that Boebart is unhappy with

Link to tweet

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/05/25/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-releases-first-ever-u-s-national-strategy-to-counter-antisemitism/

FACT SHEET: Biden-⁠Harris Administration Releases First-Ever U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism
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Administration announces over 100 new actions and over 100 calls to action to combat antisemitism, including new actions to counter antisemitism on college campuses and online; whole-of-society strategy includes new stakeholder commitments.

Today, the Biden-Harris Administration is releasing the first-ever U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism. This strategy includes over 100 new actions the Administration will take to raise awareness of antisemitism and its threat to American democracy, protect Jewish communities, reverse the normalization of antisemitism, and build cross-community solidarity.

President Biden decided to run for President after what we all saw in Charlottesville in 2017, when Neo-Nazis marched from the shadows spewing the same antisemitic bile that was heard in Europe in the 1930s. That is why he has prioritized action to counter antisemitism and hate of all kinds.

The United States has recently experienced an alarming increase in antisemitic incidents, among other acts of hatred. American Jews account for 2.4% of the U.S. population, but they are the victims of 63% of reported religiously motivated hate crimes, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

While antisemitic incidents most directly and intensely affect the Jewish community, antisemitism threatens all of us. Antisemitic conspiracy theories fuel other forms of hatred, discrimination, and bias—including discrimination against other religious minorities, racism, sexism, and anti-LGBTQI+ hate. Antisemitism seeks to divide Americans from one another, erodes trust in government and nongovernmental institutions, and undermines our democracy.

That is why, in December, President Biden established the Interagency Policy Committee on Antisemitism, Islamophobia, and Related Forms of Bias and Discrimination, led by the White House Domestic Policy Council and National Security Council. As its first order of business, President Biden tasked this group with producing the first-ever U.S. national strategy to counter antisemitism in the United States.

This national strategy sets forth a whole-of-society plan that both meets this moment of escalating hatred and lays the foundation for reducing antisemitism over time. Informed by input from over 1,000 stakeholders from every sector of American society, it outlines over 100 new actions that Executive Branch agencies have committed to take in order to counter antisemitism—all of which will be completed within a year. The strategy also calls on Congress to enact legislation that would help counter antisemitism and urges every sector of society to mobilize against this age-old hatred, including state and local governments, civil society, schools and academic institutions, the tech sector, businesses, and diverse religious communities.

To support the whole-of-society call to action, today the Biden-Harris Administration also announced commitments to counter antisemitism and build cross-community solidarity by organizations across the private sector, civil society, religious and multi-faith communities, and higher education. Today’s announcements include commitments from the Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Committee, Asian American Foundation, Black Jewish Entertainment Alliance, College of William & Mary, Council on American-Islamic Relations, Foundation to Combat Antisemitism alongside six professional sports leagues, Interfaith Alliance, Jewish Council for Public Affairs, National Action Network, National Basketball Players Association, National Urban League, Polarization & Extremism Research & Innovation Lab at American University, Recording Academy, Religious Freedom & Business Foundation, Sikh Coalition, Southern Poverty Law Center, and UnidosUS. The Administration calls on additional organizations to join this existing group in establishing their own impactful initiatives to counter antisemitism.