Uncategorized
Biden plan to combat antisemitism demands reforms across the executive branch and beyond
WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Joe Biden unveiled a multifaceted and broad strategy to combat antisemitism in the United States that reaches from basketball courts to farming communities, from college campuses to police departments.
“We must say clearly and forcefully that antisemitism and all forms of hate and violence have no place in America,” Biden said in a prerecorded video. “Silence is complicity.”
The 60-page document and its list of more than 100 recommendations stretches across the government, requiring reforms in virtually every sector of the executive branch within a year. It was formulated after consultations with over a thousand experts, and covers a range of tactics, from increased security funding to a range of educational efforts.
The plan has been in the works since December, and the White House has consulted with large Jewish organizations throughout the process. The finished document embraces proposals that large Jewish organizations have long advocated, as well as initiatives that pleasantly surprised Jewish organizational leaders, most of whom praised it upon its release.
Among the proposals that Jewish leaders have called for were recommendations to streamline reporting of hate crimes across local, state and federal law enforcement agencies, which will enable the government to accurately assess the breadth of hate crimes. The proposal also recommends that Congress double the funds available to nonprofits for security measures, from $180 million to $360 million.
One proposal that, if enacted, could be particularly far-reaching — and controversial — is a call for Congress to pass “fundamental reforms” to a provision that shields social media platforms from liability for the content users post on their sites. The plan says social media companies should have a “zero tolerance policy for hate speech on their platforms.”
In addition, the plan calls for action in partnership with a range of government agencies and private entities. It says the government will work with professional sports leagues to educate fans about antisemitism and hold athletes accountable for it, following instances of antisemitic speech by figures such as NBA star Kyrie Irving or NFL player DeSean Jackson.
The government will also partner with rural museums and libraries to educate their visitors about Jewish heritage and antisemitism. And the plan includes actions to be taken by a number of cabinet departments, from the Department of Veterans Affairs to the USDA.
“It’s really producing a whole-of-government approach that stretches from what you might consider the obvious things like more [security] grants and more resources for the Justice Department and the FBI,” said Nathan Diament, the Washington director of the Orthodox Union. “But it stretches all the way across things that the Department of Labor and the Small Business Administration can do with regard to educating about antisemitism, that the National Endowment of the Humanities and the President’s Council on Sports and Fitness can do with regard to the institutions that they deal with.”
An array of Jewish organizations from the left to the center-right echoed those sentiments in welcoming the plan with enthusiasm, marking a change from recent weeks in which they had been split over how the plan should define antisemitism. Still, a handful of right-wing groups blasted the strategy, saying that its chosen definition of antisemitism diluted the term.
Despite the relatively united front, there are elements of the strategy that may stoke broader controversy: Among a broad array of partner groups named in the plan is the Council on American-Islamic Relations, whose harsh criticism of Israel has led to relations with centrist Jewish organizations that are fraught at best. The call to place limits on social media platforms may also upset free speech advocates.
Biden recalled, as he often does, that he decided to run for president after President Donald Trump equivocated while condemning the neo-Nazis who organized a deadly march in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.
“Repeated episodes of hate — including numerous attacks on Jewish Americans — have since followed Charlottesville, shaking our moral conscience as Americans and challenging the values for which we stand as a Nation,” Biden wrote in an introduction to the report.
The administration launched the initiative last December, after years during which Jewish groups and the FBI reported sharp spikes in antisemitic incidents. The strategy was originally planned for release at its Jewish American Heritage Month celebration last week, but was delayed, in part because of last minute internal squabbling over whether it would accept a definition of antisemitism that some on the left said chilled free speech on Israel. Some right-wing groups were deeply critical of the new strategy for not accepting that definition to the exclusion of others.
Rabbi Levi Shemtov, the executive vice president of American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad) praised the breadth of the plan, and said the delay seemed to produce results.
“The White House has taken this very seriously. The phrase that something is still being worked on can often be a euphemism for a lack of concern,” he said. “In this case, it seems to have resulted in an even more comprehensive and hopefully more effective result.”
Some of the initiatives in the plan focus less on directly confronting antisemitism and more on promoting tolerance of and education about Jews.The Biden Administration will seek to ensure accommodations for Jewish religious observance, the accompanying fact sheet said, and “the Department of Agriculture will work to ensure equal access to all USDA feeding programs for USDA customers with religious dietary needs, including kosher and halal dietary needs.”
Jonathan Greenblatt, the Anti-Defamation League CEO who was closely consulted on the strategy, said promoting inclusion was as critical as fighting antisemitism. “Is FEMA giving kosher provisions after disasters going to solve antisemitism?” he said in an interview. “No, but… it’s an acknowledgement of the plurality of communities and the need to treat Jewish people like you would any other minority community, and I think I’m very pleased to see that.”
In the months since Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, who is Jewish, convened a roundtable to launch the initiative, the Biden administration has pivoted from focusing on the threat of antisemitism from the far-right to also highlighting its manifestation in other spheres — including amid anti-Israel activism on campuses and the targeting of visibly religious Jews in the northeast. Those factors were evident in the strategy.
“Some traditionally observant Jews, especially traditional Orthodox Jews, are victimized while walking down the street,” the strategy said in its introduction. “Jewish students and educators are targeted for derision and exclusion on college campuses, often because of their real or perceived views about the State of Israel.”
The proposal that may provoke controversy beyond American Jewry is the Biden Administration’s calls to reform the tech sector, which echo bipartisan recommendations to change Section 230, a provision of U.S. law that grants platforms immunity from being liable for the content users post. Free speech advocates and the companies themselves say that if the government were to police online speech, it would veer into censorship.
“Tech companies have a critical role to play and for that reason the strategy contains 10 separate calls to tech companies to establish a zero tolerance policy for hate speech on their platforms, to ensure that their algorithms do not pass along hate speech and extreme content to users and to listen more closely to Jewish groups to better understand how antisemitism manifests itself on their platforms,” Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, Biden’s top Homeland Security adviser, said during a 30-minute briefing on the strategy on Thursday. “The president has also called on Congress to remove the special immunity for online platforms and to impose stronger transparency requirements in order to ensure that tech companies are removing content that violates their terms of service.”
Neo-Nazis and white supremacists encircle counterprotesters at the base of a statue of Thomas Jefferson after marching through the University of Virginia campus with torches in Charlottesville, Va., Aug. 11, 2017. (Shay Horse/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
In the weeks before the rollout, a debate raged online and behind the scenes amid Jewish organizations and activists about how the plan would define antisemitism. Centrist and right-wing groups pushed for the plan to embrace the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition. Among its examples of anti-Jewish bigotry are those focusing on when Israel criticism is antisemitic, including when “double standards” applied to Israel are antisemitic.
Advocates on the left say those clauses turn legitimate criticism of Israel into hate speech; instead, they pushed to include references to the Nexus Document, a definition authored by academics that recognizes IHRA but seeks to complement it by further elucidating how anti-Israel expression may be antisemitic in some instances, and not in others. Others sought to include the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, which rejects IHRA’s Israel-related examples.
In the end, the strategy said the U.S. government recognizes the IHRA definition as the “most prominent” and “appreciates the Nexus Document and notes other such efforts.”
A number of the centrist groups pressed for exclusive reference to IHRA, including the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Those groups praised the strategy and focused only on its embrace of IHRA. So did the Israeli ambassador to Washington, Michael Herzog.
“I would like to congratulate the Biden administration for publishing the first ever national strategy to combat antisemitism,” Herzog wrote on Twitter. “Thank you, @POTUS, for prioritizing the need to confront antisemitism in all its forms. We welcome the re-embracing of @TheIHRA definition which is the gold standard definition of antisemitism.”
Some center-right groups like B’nai Brith International, StandWithUs and the World Jewish Congress, praised the strategy while expressing regret at the inclusion of Nexus. Right-wing groups, such as the Republican Jewish Coalition and Christians United for Israel condemned the rollout.
RJC said Biden “blew it” by not exclusively using the IHRA definition. The Brandeis Center, which defends pro-Israel groups and students on campus, said the “substance doesn’t measure up.”
Groups on the left, however, broadly praised the strategy. “We call on our Jewish communities to seize this historic moment and build on this new strategy to ensure that the fight for Jewish safety is a fight for a better and safer America for all,” said a statement from six left-leaning groups spearheaded by Jews For Racial & Economic Justice.
Greenblatt said it was predictable that groups on the left would take the win and that groups on the right would grumble — but that it was also beside the point. IHRA, he said, was now U.S. policy.
“This document elevates and advances IHRA as the way that U.S. policy will be formulated going forward and across all of the agencies,” Greenblatt said. “That is a win.”
—
The post Biden plan to combat antisemitism demands reforms across the executive branch and beyond appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
In a Mamdani-era primary, J Street backs pro-Israel incumbent — and, in a first, his challenger
Rep. Dan Goldman, a two-term Democrat facing a tough primary in New York’s 10th District, has been endorsed again by J Street, but in an unusual move, the pro-Israel advocacy group will also “approve” Goldman’s opponent, former City Comptroller Brad Lander, who has made Goldman’s centrist stance on Israel and ties to AIPAC central to his campaign.
J Street said it is “proud” to support Goldman for reelection for his “pro-Israel, pro-peace, and pro-democracy leadership” in Congress. “Goldman has worked toward a better future for the Middle East as Congressman, co-leading letters opposing demolition of Palestinian homes and calling for sanctions on some of the most violent extremist settlers in the West Bank,” Jeremy Ben-Ami, J Street’s president, said in a statement shared with the Forward.
Goldman called J Street a “vital organization that squarely aligns with my support for Israel as a Jewish and democratic state” and one that “represents many of my Jewish and progressive values, like justice, equality, freedom, and the pursuit of peace.”
J Street first endorsed Goldman, an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune who was elected in a competitive primary in 2022, in the 2024 election; as an incumbent, he was automatically included on J Street’s early endorsement list of 117 House members. The group is now reaffirming its backing of Goldman as he faces an uphill battle in a district that voted for Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist and strident critic of Israel, in the Democratic primary for Mayor — after Lander cross-endorsed him, and overwhelmingly backed him in the general election against former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
Mamdani is backing Lander’s bid, while Goldman has the support of Gov. Kathy Hochul, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal.
Palestinian rights and the Gaza war have increasingly become a litmus test for progressive candidates seeking to define themselves against establishment Democrats. The stakes are heightened by the makeup of the district’s electorate and the fact that both candidates are Jewish, making Israel a key issue in the race. Jewish voters are estimated to comprise more than 20% of the Democratic primary electorate in the 10th Congressional District, which encompasses the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Borough Park and Park Slope, along with a swath of lower Manhattan.
At his campaign launch in Chinatown last week, Goldman said that his Israel positions reflect where most voters in the district are: supportive of Israel’s security while finding a pathway for a two-state solution, sharply critical of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government, and opposed to settlement expansion and settler violence. Last November, Goldman co-led a letter to President Donald Trump urging for the re-imposition of the Biden era sanctions on West Bank settlers.
Goldman was also an early supporter of humanitarian pauses in the war against Hamas to allow the flow of humanitarian aid. Recently, he told The New York Times, he would “likely vote differently” on a resolution to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American House member, for her comments on Israel. More than 1,000 constituents protested outside his district office after his vote in favor of the Republican-led measure.
Goldman diverged from J Street on key Gaza-related efforts, including his opposition to Democratic-led measures to block or condition U.S. arms transfers to Israel or his refusal to sign onto a letter opposing Trump’s initial vision of the U.S. taking control of Gaza and turning it into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”
Risa Levine, an advocate and an active member of J Street, said it’s a “no brainer” to reaffirm support for Goldman given that on Israel and issues related to the Jewish community, he is “100% where the J Street membership is” and “very amenable to everything that J Street says” even when there are disagreements about certain policies.
Levine, who as a constituent has attended private meetings with Goldman, said that describing Goldman as being owned or directed by AIPAC is “kind of silly,” given his personal wealth, estimated at up to $253 million. Goldman loaned his campaign $4 million in 2022; AIPAC’s super PAC later said it contributed $350,000 to a local super PAC opposing his chief rival at the time, Yuh-Line Niou, who supports the boycott Israel movement.
Lander’s J Street seal of approval
The endorsement of Goldman underscores the bind J Street now faces, placing itself squarely in the middle of a complex and contentious primary.
Lander is widely regarded inside the organization as a family figure. He is a regular speaker at its annual conferences, and activists and donors view Lander as a natural standard-bearer for the group in the post–Gaza war and Mamdani era.
J Street is expected to break with past practice and list Lander as one of seven “primary-approved” House candidates, but the only challenger to an incumbent it supports. That designation would allow donors to contribute to his campaign through the J Street PAC portal but stops short of organizing events or offering active campaign support.
In an interview on Monday, Lander called the group’s decision to approve his candidacy “significant.”
Lander also insisted that he is “better aligned” with the views of this district on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, an issue, he said, which will be important for voters in the race.
Though Lander opposes the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement, he supported Ben & Jerry’s decision to end sales in the occupied West Bank in 2021. Since Oct. 7, Lander has regularly attended a weekly rally against the Israeli government’s handling of the war in Gaza, has backed calls for a permanent ceasefire and has met with families of Israeli hostages.
In September, he expressed regret for not doing enough “to speak out against Israel’s war crimes, against ethnic cleansing, against forced starvation of Palestinians.” More recently, he described the war as “genocide,” inspired by the writings of Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term, which his daughter had given him. J Street’s head said he was “persuaded” by arguments that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
As comptroller, Lander also ended New York City’s half-century practice of investing millions in Israeli government debt securities in 2023.
Ruth Messinger, the trailblazing Jewish political leader who in 1997 became the first and only woman to win the Democratic nomination for New York City mayor, praised J Street for having “flexibility” in maintaining their relationship with Goldman, but also designating Lander as an approved candidate.
Lander, she said, “speaks really directly to the perspective of the people in this district on these issues, and J Street is correct in recognizing that.” Messinger, who endorsed Mamdani after the primary and said his views on Israel were not central to the job he was seeking, added that Lander would be a strong fit to succeed retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler — the longtime dean of the Congressional Jewish Caucus — and to “play this critical role” in shaping the thinking of both Jewish and non-Jewish members of Congress.
Levine said the endorsement of Goldman “speaks for itself” and that she would prefer J Street not feature Lander’s name as a primary challenger, so as not to create divisiveness within the party. She added that the endorsement could help Goldman appeal to voters who may have supported Lander’s mayoral candidacy.J Street’s Ben-Ami told the Forward, “At the end of the day, it is a win for the district and the nation to have two J Street-aligned voices in this race.”
The post In a Mamdani-era primary, J Street backs pro-Israel incumbent — and, in a first, his challenger appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
A hypnotic new album inspired by a unique Yiddish recording
Folklore scholar Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett doesn’t remember interviewing and recording the Yiddish folksinger Rose Cohen in 1968 in Toronto. But this recording may turn out to be one of the most significant ones that made it into the storied archives at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.
In it, Cohen sings ten songs from her childhood in the Kyiv region of Ukraine, in Yiddish, Hebrew, Ukrainian and Russian. A handful of these songs have never been found anywhere else.
Cohen, who came to Toronto after World War II, was from a dynasty of what she called khazonishe, or singing rabbis, and learned many of these songs listening to them singing in her home.
This recording became the inspiration for a new album, The Rose Cohen Experience, released last month on Borscht Beat Records. Her songs are performed here by Cantor Sarah Myerson and Ilya Shneyveys, a married couple of talented multi-instrumentalists. The duo, called Electric Rose, took nine of the ten songs Kirshenblatt-Gimblett recorded and created their own elaborate, imaginative versions of them.
In the recording, Myerson — who serves as spiritual leader and cantor at Roosevelt Island Jewish Congregation in New York City — sang them as she and Shneyveys played an array of instruments over loops, creating a surreal, hypnotic sound. Shneyveys was no stranger to this, having once been part of the Yiddish “psychedelic” rock group Forshpil.
One of the songs, Berosh Hashone (On Rosh Hashone) begins with a segment from the solemn High Holidays prayer Unetaneh Tokef, about how our destiny is determined by God, depending on what deeds we’ve done. But then there are other Yiddish verses about an unhappy woman asking her children if she should divorce their father. “We don’t have that as a Yiddish song elsewhere in the repertoire,” Myerson said in an interview. “We don’t know of that song existing in other languages either.”
The album is structured, at least at first, as an imagined narrative of Cohen’s own life. “Ikh heyb mikh on tsu dermonen” (I’m beginning to remember) possesses a driving rhythm and a powerful recollection of an immigrant in North America dreaming of going back to his wife in Europe. Even though it’s a folk song, it’s possibly autobiographical when she sings it, as Cohen’s father immigrated to Toronto before the rest of his family. Myerson and Shneyveys aimed to draw out the autobiographical aspect of this song by playing selections of the Cohen interview where she recalls where she is from and how old she is.
The song transitions to Bay mashin (At the machine), a folk song about a woman slaving over a sewing machine, looking forward to getting married after having assembled her dowry. In an interesting twist, Myerson actually uses the sound of a sewing machine throughout the track, both in recorded and live performances. It’s a small hand-crank sewing machine from the early 20th century, “possibly developed for child labor,” Myerson said.
Myerson contributed a special track, Kale Tfile (Bride’s prayer), to supplement the nine Cohen songs. Kale Tfile is taken from an excerpt of a tkhine (a Yiddish-language women’s prayer) that a woman would recite on the night before the wedding. She found the prayer in an 1897 prayerbook known as the Siddur Korban Minchah.
Myerson said she decided to include this text after trying to imagine how Cohen may have felt singing Bay mashin, where the ending indicates that the female narrator is about to marry. The words are plaintive (“O God, please hear my youthful prayer, receive my hot tears that I now spill before You”), raising the possibility that she is unhappy about the match. Myerson’s performance delivers the song in that spirit, utilizing a vocoder, a keyboard that allows her to harmonize with herself.
From here, the album drops its autobiographical train of thought and moves into a more experiential mode. Mayim Rabim (mighty waters), also known as Psalm 93 — a psalm recited during the Shabbat evening prayer service — is remarkable because, as Myerson said, “we just don’t have many recordings of women of her generation singing liturgy.” Here, we see how Electric Rose made use of ambient recordings; in this case — ocean waves from Miami Beach.
You can catch Electric Rose on their upcoming tours throughout the East Coast, California and Germany.
The post A hypnotic new album inspired by a unique Yiddish recording appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
China Warns Against Foreign ‘Interference’ in Iran as Trump Mulls Response to Regime Crackdown
A demonstrator lights a cigarette with fire from a burning picture of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei outside the Iranian embassy during a rally in support of nationwide protests in Iran, in London, Britain, Jan. 12, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Toby Melville
China on Monday expressed hope that the Iranian regime would “overcome” the current anti-government protests sweeping the country, warning against foreign “interference” as US President Donald Trump considered how to respond to Iran’s deadly crackdown on nationwide protests.
“China hopes the Iranian government and people will overcome the current difficulties and uphold stability in the country,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told reporters during a press conference.
“China always opposes interference in other countries’ internal affairs, advocates that all countries’ sovereignty and security should be fully protected by international law, and opposes the use or threat of force in international relations,” she continued. “We call on parties to act in ways conducive to peace and stability in the Middle East.”
The comments came as Iran continued to face fierce demonstrations, which began on Dec. 28 over economic hardships but escalated into large-scale protests calling for the downfall of the country’s Islamist regime.
If the regime in Tehran was seriously weakened or potentially collapsed, it would present a problem for a strategic partner of Beijing.
China, a key diplomatic and economic backer of Tehran, has moved to deepen ties with the regime in recent years, signing a 25-year cooperation agreement, holding joint naval drills, and continuing to purchase Iranian oil despite US sanctions.
China is the largest importer of Iranian oil, with nearly 90 percent of Iran’s crude and condensate exports going to Beijing. Traders and analysts have said that Chinese reliance on Iranian oil will likely increase and replace Venezuelan oil after US forces captured Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro earlier this month.
Iran’s growing ties with China come at a time when Tehran faces mounting economic sanctions from Western powers, while Beijing itself is also under US sanctions.
According to some media reports, China may be even helping Iran rebuild its decimated air defenses following the 12-day war with Israel in June.
The extent of China’s partnership with Iran may be tested as the latter comes under increased international scrutiny over its violent crackdown on anti-regime protests.
US-based rights group HRANA said by late Monday it had verified the deaths of 646 people, including 505 protesters, 113 military and security personnel, and seven bystanders. The group added that it was investigating 579 more reported deaths and that, since the demonstrations began,10,721 people have been arrested.
Other reports gave indicated the number of protesters killed by the regime numbers well into the thousands, but with the regime imposing an internet blackout since Thursday, verification has been difficult.
Trump has said he will intervene against the regime if security forces continue killing protesters. Adding to threats of military action, Trump late on Monday announced that any country doing business with Iran will face a new tariff of 25 percent on its exports to the U.S.
“This order is final and conclusive,” he said in a social media post.
According to reports, Trump was to meet with senior advisers on Tuesday to discuss options for Iran, including military strikes, using cyber weapons, widening sanctions, and providing online help to anti-government sources.
Iran has warned that any military action would be met with force in response.
“Let us be clear: in the case of an attack on Iran, the occupied territories [Israel] as well as all US bases and ships will be our legitimate target,” Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf told a crowd in Tehran’s Enqelab Square on Monday, adding that Iranians were fighting a four-front war: “economic war, psychological warfare, military war against the US and Israel, and today a war against terrorism.”
However, the White House stressed that Trump hopes to find a diplomatic resolution.
“Diplomacy is always the first option for the president,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Monday.
“What you’re hearing publicly from the Iranian regime is quite different from the messages the administration is receiving privately, and I think the president has an interest in exploring those messages,” she said.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told Al Jazeera that he and US envoy Steve Witkoff have been in contact.
Trump said on Sunday the US could meet Iranian officials and he was in contact with Iran’s opposition.