WASHINGTON - The White House released a comprehensive plan to counter antisemitism across the United States, which includes things like addressing lack of education about the Holocaust, security at Jewish institutions and the spread of conspiracy theories on the Internet.
The strategy aims to increase awareness and understanding of anti-semitism, enhance security for Jewish communities, reversing the normization of antisemitism and building solidarity among religious groups.
The most ambitious and comprehensive U.S. government-led effort to fight antisemitism in American history is the most ambitious and comprehensive U.S. government-led effort to combat antisemitism, Biden said. Doug Emhoff, the husband of vice president Kamala Harris and the first Jewish spouse of a vice president, said antisemitism has divided American society.
It threatens our democracy while undermining our American values of freedom, community and decency, he said. And antisemitism presents simple, false and dangerous narratives that have resulted in extreme attacks against Jews. To increase awareness about antisemitism, outgoing White House domestic policy adviser Susan Rice said that next year, the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. will launch the first Holocaust education research center in the United States. The National Endowment for the Humanities is planning to expand its investment in K-12 education on Jewish history and added that federal agencies have committed to incorporating information about antisemitic bias and discrimination into their diversity, equity inclusion and accessibility training programs. In a statement, Biden's homeland security adviser Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall said that to improve security at synagogues and Jewish institutions, the administration has increased funding to improve the physical security of those buildings and has asked Congress for additional resources. In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security said that it will also contact Jewish communities to ensure they are receiving and utilizing all the training and resources available to them.
Sherwood-Randall said the White House's plan demands that tech companies establish a zero-tolerance policy for hate speech on their platforms and ensure that their algorithms do not pass along hate speech and extreme content to users.
Deborah Lipstadt, the U.S. special envoy to monitor and counter antisemitism, called the plan a historic moment in the modern fight against what is known as the world's oldest hate. They were introducing the strategy in the same building that once housed the State and War departments and a form of Jew-hatred took shape as official policy as State Department officials erected so-called paper walls around this country to prevent us from entering our borders. Under the plan, the FBI and National Counterterrorism Center will conduct an annual threat assessment on antisemitic drivers of transnational violent extremism that can be shared with technology companies and other nongovernmental partners, the White House said in a declassified version of its first assessment.