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‘An epidemic of hate’: Biden administration officials meet with Jewish leaders to tackle rising antisemitism
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Top Biden administration officials launched a roundtable on antisemitism on Wednesday by describing a “rising tide of antisemitism” and likening the atmosphere in the United States to that of Europe, where Jewish worship is held under lock and key.
“Right now, there is an epidemic of hate facing our country,” said Douglas Emhoff, the Jewish second gentleman, who convened and chaired the 90-minute session.
Jewish officials represented at the meeting were impressed by how comprehensive the meeting was, saying it went beyond the white supremacist threat that the Biden administration has focused on in the past to other sources, among them attackers who target the visibly Orthodox and Jewish students on campuses.
The meeting in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, adjacent to the White House, comes on the heels of weeks of antisemitic invective spewed by rapper Kanye West, who now goes by Ye, and the dinner attended last month by West, Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes and former President Donald Trump at Trump’s Florida residence. The discussion also follows alarming spikes in antisemitic invective on Twitter and other platforms.
“In my experience, there’s nothing more vicious than what we’re seeing today,” said Susan Rice, President Joe Biden’s top domestic policy adviser, who described growing up in a heavily Jewish neighborhood in Washington, D.C.
Ten years ago, Rice said, when she was defending Israel against its many enemies as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, she did not imagine a threat to Jews domestically. Now she says she hears antisemitic expressions coming from elected officials, public figures and entertainers, calling it an “incredible rising tide.”
Deborah Lipstadt, the State Department envoy to monitor antisemitism, said she no longer has the luxury of her predecessors, who traveled abroad to assess antisemitism in foreign countries. Now, she said, she had to treat the problem as a domestic and a foreign one.
“I can’t go to these countries and say ‘You have a problem,’” she said. “Now I have to say ‘We have a serious problem.’”
After multiple attacks on synagogues stateside in recent years, she said, Jewish places of worship were becoming more visibly fortified than they were for years when security, if it existed, was unobtrusive and synagogues were welcoming.
“For decades, when we traveled in Europe, we used to identify synagogues by gendarmes,” she said. “Now we see police cars, now we lock the doors in the United States.”
The Kanye West episodes evidently helped spur the convening of the meeting. George Selim, the Anti-Defamation League senior vice president who was present, said the meeting came together within a week, unlike similar events which can take months to organize.
“The urgency was clear, the meeting needed to be convened, it needed to be in person,” he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in an interview.
Representatives of the dozen or so groups that attended were impressed by the level of attention: in addition to Emhoff, Rice and Lipstadt, there were officials from the National Security Council, the Officer of Public Engagement, and the Office of Faith-based Partnerships.
The representatives were impressed by how personal Emhoff, who is married to Vice President Kamala Harris, made the battle. He described how moved he has been by American Jews who are proud of him — the first Jewish spouse of a president or vice president. “I’m in pain right now, our community is in pain,” he said.
Emhoff’s unabashed identification with the Jewish community helped elevate the issue of combating antisemitism, said Rabbi Levi Shemtov, the executive vice president of American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad).
“He and I might see Jewish ritual and practice a little differently. But one thing Jewish people will remember forever in our history is that when the time came for him to make his decision, he decided to identify unequivocally as a Jew,” Shemtov said.
Amy Spitalnick, the executive director of Integrity First for America, the group that underwrote successful lawsuits against the neo-Nazis who organized the deadly 2017 march in Charlottesville, Virginia, said the officials closely listened to every presentation. (The media was present for opening remarks by government officials, and was ushered out so the representatives of Jewish groups could speak freely.)
“We were watching them take copious notes, they were genuinely listening,” she told JTA.
The range of invitees and the topics addressed also extended beyond the threat posed to Jews from the extreme right, an area that has until now been the Biden administration’s focus, through a summit on extremism in September and a speech Biden gave in Philadelphia last summer.
Speakers addressed antisemitic attacks on the visibly Orthodox which, particularly in the New York area, are most often not carried out by white supremacists. And there were officials from at least three groups that represent the visibly Orthodox: The Orthodox Union, which is Modern Orthodox, along with Agudath Israel of America and American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad), which are haredi Orthodox.
Speakers also were sensitive to the plight of Jewish students on college campuses, who often face hostility from peers whose sharp criticism of Israel can sometimes manifest as antisemitism.
“On college campuses, the supposed bastions of liberal ideas and ideals, many students believe it better to camouflage their Jewish identity,” Lipstadt said. One of the speakers was Julia Jassey, a senior at the University of Chicago who is the CEO of Jewish on Campus, a student group that tracks antisemitism on campuses.
The Jewish participants said they benefited from hearing how others experienced antisemitism. Abba Cohen, Aguda’s Washington director, said he found receptive listeners when he described an increased effort by local councils to limit the building of Orthodox communities. He and Nathan Diament, the Washington director of the Orthodox Union, also described the threat to the visibly Orthodox.
Their accounts moved others present who do not live the Orthodox lifestyle. “We all have different experiences with antisemitism and clearly for someone who’s Orthodox, it might feel different than for someone who’s not,” said Sheila Katz, the CEO of the National Council of Jewish Women.
Katz said the meeting was a relief because she often has difficulty explaining to her progressive allies why antisemitism persists as a threat.
“I feel like in the last, you know, year, I’ve been saying over and over again, this is getting worse. This is getting amplified, people are emboldened,” she said. “And there are a lot, particularly in the progressive community that would say, ‘No, no, that’s not what’s happening.’”
Some practical proposals were discussed, including a letter this week from a bipartisan slate of lawmakers advocating for a cross-agency “whole of government” task force to combat antisemitism, and an expansion of federal funding that currently underwrites security upgrades for Jewish institutions to include paying for extra police patrols.
The meeting did not result in concrete decisions, but participants said they left with the impression that the federal government was ready to dive deep into finding practicable solutions.
“For me, this is not the end. This is just the beginning of this conversation,” Emhoff said.
Other groups represented included the American Jewish Committee, Hillel International, the Jewish Federations of North America, the Reform and Conservative movements, and Secure Community Network, the security consultancy for the Jewish community.
“It sends a very important message that the sort of rampant antisemitism we’re seeing is unacceptable and that the highest office in the country is doing something about it,” Spitalnick said.
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The post ‘An epidemic of hate’: Biden administration officials meet with Jewish leaders to tackle rising antisemitism appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Trump announces deal with Iran is ‘now complete’
(JTA) — President Donald Trump announced Sunday that a deal to end the war with Iran and reopen the Strait of Hormuz is “now complete.”
“Congratulations to all! I hereby fully authorize the toll free opening of the Strait of Hormuz, and, simultaneously herewith, authorize the immediate removal of the United States Naval blockade,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “Ships of the World, start your engines. Let the oil flow!”
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who has played a key mediating role in talks between the U.S. and Iran, also announced that a deal had been reached minutes before Trump made his post, adding that an official signing ceremony would take place Friday in Switzerland.
“Both sides have declared the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon,” Sharif wrote in a post on X.
The announcement comes more than three months since Israel and the U.S. launched its joint strikes on Iran in February. While the deal’s details have not yet been publicly announced, it is expected to extend a ceasefire between Iran and the U.S. for 60 days, during which the countries will negotiate a broader agreement addressing Iran’s nuclear program.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu did not immediately put out a statement following the announcement, but earlier Sunday he had posted a message on X celebrating Trump’s birthday.
Also earlier Sunday, Israel launched strikes on Hezbollah targets in Beirut, prompting Iran to vow retaliation and drawing a sharp rebuke from Trump, who said the strikes had “delayed the signing by a few hours.”
“Why did Bibi have to do a f–cking attack? I was so pissed off. I let him know. He has no fucking judgement. I let him know that,” Trump told Axios Sunday.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Jane Yolen, children’s book author whose ‘The Devil’s Arithmetic’ became a Holocaust classic, dies at 87
(JTA) — Jane Yolen was already an award-winning author and illustrator of more than 100 titles for young readers when her editor suggested she write a Jewish children’s book.
At first, she resisted the idea. Sure, she was Jewish. But she didn’t grow up in a religiously observant family, and she insisted she didn’t know enough about Judaism to take on the project.
Finally, she relented. Drawing on a spark of an idea about a Holocaust time-travel fantasy, Yolen turned in the first draft of what would become “The Devil’s Arithmetic,” her 1988 young adult novel. “I thought, ‘OK, I’m going to try this,’” Yolen recalled to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency years later.
The book won immediate acclaim and garnered multiple awards. Today, it’s seen as a classic of the genre — and one that remains caught up in banned-book lists.
For Yolen, who died Thursday at 87 in her home in Western Massachusetts, “The Devil’s Arithmetic” became her signature title. Still in print, the book was also made into an Emmy Award-winning Showtime feature starring Kirsten Dunst. It was the cornerstone of a titanic legacy in children’s literature, her family said in a statement.
“It is with profound sadness that I, along with my brothers, Adam Stemple, and Jason Stemple, share the news of our mother, Jane Yolen’s passing,” her daughter Heidi Stemple wrote on Facebook, adding that Yolen had “passed gently with no pain or stress” and her family by her side, reading one of her books to her.
Yolen was born on Feb. 11, 1939, in New York City. Her father was a journalist and her mother was a psychiatric social worker until Yolen was born.
An alumna of Smith College, where she won poetry and journalism awards, she worked first as an editor in New York City, writing at her breaks and time off. Her first published book, “Pirates in Petticoats,” a nonfiction work about women on the high seas, was published when she was 22.
She soon pivoted to children’s literature, becoming one of the most prolific authors in the genre. She went on to publish 450 children’s books, including more Jewish titles, and was known as “the Hans Christian Andersen of America.” She won the prestigious Caldecott Medal for her 1987 picture book, “Owl Moon,” and her “How Do Dinosaurs …” series is a staple in many preschool classrooms. (It includes one Jewish title: “How Do Dinosaurs Say Happy Chanukah?” Her 450th title was published just this year, her children said.
But it was “The Devil’s Arithmetic,” scholars have said, that cemented her legacy as a leading author for young Jews. The novel was a trailblazer for its blending of time-travel with historical veracity, according to the late Norman H. Finkelstein, a National Jewish Book award winner who was a children’s librarian himself.
“It was a different Holocaust book,” Finkelstein told JTA in 2018, on the occasion of the title’s 30th anniversary. “It was not strictly factual, it was not a memoir. Jane did a superb job in taking the story of the Holocaust down to a level that ordinary American kids could understand. The characters were realistic, not paper cutouts.”
Other titles of hers included “Meet Me at the Well: The Girls and Women of the Bible,” with Barbara Diamond Goldin, and “Jewish Fairy Tale Feasts,” with her daughter Heidi, who developed and illustrated the hands-on recipes.
Yolen relished the collaborations with her daughter. They lived next door to each other, along with Stemple’s family, with two grandchildren who were taste-testers of Stemple’s recipes.
“Jane was a treasure, and it is difficult to think of the world of books — indeed the world itself – without her,” Richard Michelson, an award-winning author of Jewish children’s books and Yolen’s friend and neighbor, wrote on Facebook. Describing her as a cherished mentor of younger writers, he added, “Jane created classics as if it were as easy as breathing.”
While often assigned in schools as part of lessons on the Holocaust, Yolen’s titles are not without controversy. In 2025 a Texas school district, using artificial intelligence, flagged “The Devil’s Arithmetic” for removal as a title containing “DEI,” or diversity, equity and inclusion content. The book became one of several well known Holocaust titles to be pulled from schools in the last few years.
Though she had initially resisted the idea of being a Holocaust author, Yolen would go on to publish a trilogy of unconventional young-adult novels about the subject. She incorporated elements of “Sleeping Beauty” into 1992’s “Briar Rose.” “Mapping the Bones” followed in 2018 as a riff on “Hansel and Gretel.”
“Whenever we think of the Holocaust, we think of remembering,” Yolen told JTA in that same 2018 interview. “We think of never forgetting. Soon all we will have are the stories.”
In addition to her children, Yolen is survived by six grandchildren. Her husband, David Stemple, to whom she was married for 44 years, died in 2006.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Jane Yolen, children’s book author whose ‘The Devil’s Arithmetic’ became a Holocaust classic, dies at 87 appeared first on The Forward.
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Hebrew Union College claims Ohio’s charity-law suit violates its First Amendment rights
(JTA) — The Reform movement’s central rabbinical seminary filed a motion to dismiss the state of Ohio’s lawsuit against the school Friday, claiming the suit violates “foundational Jewish religious doctrine.”
It was the latest escalation in a pitched battle between Hebrew Union College and the state attorney general’s office, which has accused HUC of violating nonprofit law by shuttering degree-granting programs on its historic Cincinnati campus.
The suit, HUC argues, “violates the First Amendment by entangling government and religion.”
The suit was originally filed in April by then-Ohio AG Dave Yost — his second against the college related to its controversial plan to wind down its Cincinnati operations in favor of its New York and Los Angeles campuses. Yost claimed HUC’s actions in Cincinnati misled its donors by leaving a city where they were actively fundraising to support operations, and also violated its charter, which states that the school would “permanently maintain” a residence there.
The state seeks to seize HUC’s assets in Ohio and redirect them to a new, yet-to-be-decided nonprofit with a similar mission; an upstart rabbinical school founded by HUC alums says it wants them.
Such a move “is an unconstitutional and illegal governmental assault upon religion,” HUC’s strongly worded motion reads.
It continues, “The Attorney General has no role in dictating the religious affairs of institutions like HUC. The Court should reject his overreach into religious matters and should dismiss the Complaint because it is unconstitutional and unlawful.”
HUC also argues its vote to shutter the Cincinnati campus was done in full compliance with the law, adding that it intends to maintain the campus’s other assets, including the Klau Library, the American Jewish Archives and the Skirball Museum. In addition, citing a passage in the Torah that states “God will come to his people wherever they welcome him,” the school argues that considering “Jewish demographic realities” is part of its religious mission.
“These decisions were made thoughtfully and responsibly to ensure the long-term success of the institution and our ability to continue graduating strong Jewish leaders,” HUC president Andrew Rehfeld said in a statement accompanying the motion. The lawsuit, he added, “improperly seeks to interfere in the decisions of a religious organization, and this cannot be allowed to go unchallenged.”
Yost himself resigned as AG this week to join the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal group that, in 2022, represented a Tennessee adoption agency that refused to foster a child to a Jewish couple. The suit against HUC continues under the state AG’s office.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Hebrew Union College claims Ohio’s charity-law suit violates its First Amendment rights appeared first on The Forward.
