Biden unveils national plan to crack down against antisemitism

The Biden administration released the country’s first national strategy for combating antisemitism Thursday, calling on government, law enforcement and schools to crack down on discrimination and stanch the spread of online hate.

“Silence is complicity,” President Joe Biden said in a videotaped announcement. “An attack on any one group of us is an attack on all of us.”

Last year there were 3,697 reported incidents of antisemitic assault, harassment and vandalism in the United States, according to an annual audit by the Anti-defamation League. The figure, a 36% increase over 2021, is the largest number of incidents against Jews in the United States since the organization began its assessments in 1979.

In its announcement, the White House noted that American Jews account for 2.4% of the U.S. population, but are the targets of 63% of reported religious hate crimes, according to the FBI.

The strategy was developed in consultation with some 1,000 federal and local officials, faith leaders and civil society groups, and contains more than 100 recommendations for the federal government to take by a one-year deadline. The actions include workshops to counteract bias in hiring and the workplace, enhanced Holocaust education programs offered by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and an interagency effort to eliminate barriers to reporting potential hate crimes.

Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-defamation League, called the Biden administration’s national strategy “historic.”

Greenblatt said the number of cases has increased more than 500% over the past decade. Cases include a range of actions, such as harassment on social media and vandalism; they also include violent acts.