President Joe Biden unveiled the first ever national strategy to combat antisemitism on Thursday, in which he called on the “whole of society” to fight hate.
“We must say clearly and forcefully, antisemitism and all forms of hate and violence have no place in America,” the President said in a virtual announcement.
The four-pronged plan — which the Biden administration calls the most comprehensive in U.S. history — calls for increasing awareness and understanding of antisemitism and Jewish American heritage, increasing security in Jewish communities, reversing the normalization of antisemitism, and building cross-community solidarity to fight hate.
“I think it’s important to reverse the normalization of antisemitism, the normalization of hatred,” said Brian Lipton, the Regional Director of the American Jewish Committee (AJC).
Many of the action items listed in the AJC’s call to action against antisemitism were adopted in the White House’s plan.
The most recent numbers from the FBI show there was a 12% increase in hate crimes year-to-year. Hate crimes involving Jewish people, according to the FBI’s numbers, increased by 20%.
Florida was above the national trend, according to the Attorney General’s office, with a 16.5% increase in hate crimes.
“This is something that is so scary,” Lipton said. “This is why this national strategy is so important.”
