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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.”
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A Jewish soldier died saving a Christian friend. Eighty years later, a grave reunited their families.
At a cemetery outside Florence, Italy, two families gathered around the grave of a young American soldier. For decades, they were unknown to each other. Yet they had been connected for 80 years.
Private First Class Frank T. Kurzinger was born in Germany and arrived in the United States with his family in 1938 after fleeing Nazi persecution. A few years later, he returned to Europe in an American uniform as a soldier in the 10th Mountain Division.
During training, he became close friends with a soldier from Wisconsin named Del Riley. The two met in 1943.
In February 1945, the division was preparing to assault Mount Belvedere in northern Italy. The attack would take place at night. Soldiers climbed in silence. Even their weapons had been unloaded to prevent an accidental discharge.
Ahead of Riley, a scout stepped on a landmine. The explosion tore through the darkness, severely wounding both men.
Riley called for a medic, and Kurzinger responded. He took several steps toward his friend, stepped on another landmine, and was killed. He was 21. Riley survived.
For the rest of his life, he wondered whether Frank Kurzinger might have survived the war had he never shouted for help.
“It really pained him,” said Shalom Lamm, co-founder and chief historian of Operation Benjamin. According to family accounts, Riley lived with survivor’s guilt for the rest of his life.
For a time, it seemed possible that Kurzinger himself would slowly fade from memory.
His family was small. The Holocaust had left gaps in family memory and silenced many conversations about the past. In remarks delivered at the 2025 dedication of Kurzinger’s new headstone, family member Michael Stern reflected that Frank had become little more than a distant name.
“There were no photographs,” Stern said. “No yahrzeit to observe, no role for him in stirring the longings for the warmth and intimacy of the larger family.” He might have remained, Stern said, “an anonymous stranger.”
Instead, a grave brought his life into relief.
The ceremony at Florence American Cemetery was organized by Operation Benjamin, a nonprofit that identifies Jewish servicemembers and veterans buried beneath incorrect religious markers and helps restore headstones that reflect their faith.
Kurzinger had been buried beneath a Latin Cross. Aware of the danger a German-born Jew would face if captured by the Nazis, he identified as Catholic on his dogtags.
Eight decades after he was buried, a Star of David was placed above his grave.
Yet the headstones are only part of the work. There is also the responsibility of restoring stories before they fade.
Operation Benjamin’s researchers reconstructed Kurzinger’s story. They traced descendants and gathered family memories. They also located the family of Del Riley, the Wisconsin soldier whose life Kurzinger had tried to save. The two families met for the first time in Italy ahead of the ceremony.
The next day they stood together at the cemetery.
For Lamm, Operation Benjamin is not simply about correcting the historical record. It is about zachor, the Jewish obligation to remember. He points to an unexpected moment in the Book of Exodus. As the Israelites leave Egypt, Moses fulfills a promise made generations earlier: “And Moses took with him the bones of Joseph.”
Joseph asked the Israelites to swear that when God redeemed them, they would carry his remains with them.
Lamm sees Operation Benjamin’s work as a series of “Moses moments.”
“No matter what’s going on in the world,” he said, “never forget your heroes.”
The stories beneath the stones
The organization’s work grew from a simple question. In 2014, Rabbi Jacob J. Schacter visited the Normandy American Cemetery and remarked that he expected to see more Stars of David among the graves. The observation led researchers to discover cases in which Jewish servicemembers had been buried beneath crosses because of wartime paperwork errors, mistaken records, or decisions made under extraordinary circumstances.
Since then, Operation Benjamin has reviewed thousands of cases and helped facilitate dozens of headstone corrections.
But a new headstone is only part of the story. Operation Benjamin’s researchers reconstruct lives that might otherwise be forgotten. “We will not forget you,” Lamm said. “We go back. We tell your story.”
In his remarks at the graveside, Stern reflected on what the journey had meant to his family. “Through the unlikely context of death and burial,” he said at the ceremony, “he has become a tangible link to life, to our roots, our history and the lineage from which we come. A second cousin once removed no longer feels as distant or abstract.”
In prepared remarks released by the U.S. Mission in Italy, U.S. Consul General Daniela Ballard noted that Kurzinger’s name was one of 4,392 at the military cemetery.
“Every name represents a young life lost and a family left behind,” she said. “But today, we are all Frank’s family. We are the ones who carry his memory forward.”
In remarks shared by Operation Benjamin after the ceremony, members of the Riley family described climbing Mount Belvedere with a commemorative challenge coin. One side bore Del Riley’s name and a Christian cross. The other bore Frank Kurzinger’s name and a Star of David.
The two men had set out for the mountain together in February 1945. Neither completed the mission. Frank was killed. Del was wounded. Eighty years later, the Riley family carried both men to the summit. They buried the coin at the 10th Mountain Division memorial.
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Israeli citizen Michael Mizrahi killed in Montreal shooting
(JTA) — Michael Mizrahi, an Israeli citizen and longtime member of Montreal’s Jewish community, has been identified as the civilian killed in Monday’s shooting involving a gunman and Canadian police officers in Montreal’s Côte-des-Neiges neighborhood.
The suspected gunman was killed during the incident, the investigation of which is ongoing. Police have not publicly released the suspect’s identity or provided details about a possible motive. They also have not confirmed who shot Mizrahi.
The Israeli Consulate in Montreal confirmed Mizrahi’s death, saying in a statement that he was an Israeli citizen and extended condolences to his family “on behalf of the people and the State of Israel.” The consulate said his family “knows all too well the horrors of terror and violence, making this tragic loss even more painful.”
Montreal police Constable Mohamed Lamine Benredouane, 34, was also fatally shot responding to the incident, according to police.
The Service de police de la Ville de Montréal said Benredouane died in the line of duty while protecting the public during an intervention in Côte-des-Neiges, a heavily Jewish neighborhood. He had served with the force since 2021.
A second officer, who is female, was also shot and remains in critical condition, police said.
Quebec’s Bureau des enquêtes indépendantes, the province’s police watchdog, has opened an independent investigation into the use of a firearm by a police officer in a fatal confrontation.The Quebec police watchdog group states that it is “mandated to fully investigate the facts surrounding police interventions. The BEI investigates all cases where a person, other than a police officer on duty, dies, suffers serious injury, or is injured by a firearm used by a police officer during a police intervention or while in police custody.“
A number of Canadian Jewish groups published statements assuring the Jewish community that they were not in danger. The UJA-Federation of Toronto put out two statements explaining that the Jewish community did not appear to be a target.
The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, the advocacy arm of Canadian Jewish Federations, also put out a statement mourning the loss of a community member.
“We mourn the tragic loss of Michael (Michel) Moshe Mizrahi z”l, a beloved member of Montreal’s Jewish community, an innocent victim of today’s events,” the group posted on X on Monday night. “Our thoughts and our deepest condolences are with his family, friends, and loved ones during this time of unimaginable pain.”
Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar wrote on X that he had called the Chabad Rabbi of Montreal Mendel Raskin to extend his “deepest condolences to the families of the victims, to the Jewish community of Montreal, and to all Canadians mourning this terrible loss.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Supreme Court reinstates murder conviction in Etan Patz disappearance case
(JTA) — The Supreme Court on Monday reinstated a murder conviction for the man convicted of killing Etan Patz, the 6-year-old Jewish boy whose 1979 disappearance riveted the nation.
In a 6-3 vote, the justices reimposed the conviction of Pedro Hernandez, who was found guilty of kidnapping and murdering Patz in 2017 and was serving a 25-year sentence until a New York federal appeals court ruled last year that he was entitled to a retrial.
The justices granted an appeal from New York prosecutors who urged them to overturn the decision last year, writing in an unsigned opinion that the lower court “exceeded its authority in holding that Hernandez is entitled to relief.”
“Today the Supreme Court agreed with the findings of multiple lower courts and upheld the trial conviction of Pedro Hernandez for the horrific murder of Etan Patz, which changed a generation of New Yorkers,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement Monday. “This office has remained steadfast in its pursuit of justice for Etan and the Patz family and will continue to stand by this important conviction.”
Harvey Fishbein, a lawyer for Hernandez, told the The New York Times Monday that the Supreme Court’s order meant Hernandez would not get a new trial, adding that his team was “terribly disappointed.”
“We firmly believe that an innocent man is in jail for a crime that he did not commit,” Fishbein said.
Patz vanished in May 1979 while walking to his school bus stop in New York City for the first time. The 6-year-old became one of the first missing children whose photograph appeared on milk cartons nationwide, but despite years of searches and public appeals, he was never found.
Patz’s parents, Julie and Stan, spent decades seeking an arrest for his disappearance, helping to establish a national missing-children hotline. The anniversary of Etan’s disappearance, May 25, also became National Missing Children’s Day.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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