Uncategorized
‘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.
—
The post ‘An epidemic of hate’: Biden administration officials meet with Jewish leaders to tackle rising antisemitism appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
Ed Sheeran’s support acts bail on Loop Tour after Macklemore dropped
(JTA) —
All of Ed Sheeran’s opening acts and his backing band have withdrawn from his Loop Tour after the pro-Palestinian rapper Macklemore was dropped as an opening act amid pressure from Robert Kraft and other stadium owners.
Kraft, the Jewish and pro-Israel billionaire who owns the Boston-area stadium where one of the tour stops had been scheduled, said on Monday that he had told Sheeran’s team that Macklemore wouldn’t be allowed to perform there.
Macklemore was subsequently dropped from the tour following pushback from unnamed venues that “will not allow a concert to take place with Macklemore on the lineup,” Rolling Stone reported on Monday.
At a Macklemore performance at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., earlier this month, the rapper declared “Free Palestine” before performing his 2024 song, “Hind’s Hall,” referring to Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall. Pro-Palestinian protesters occupied the building and unofficially renamed it for Hind Rajab, a 6-year-old Palestinian girl who was killed during the war in Gaza. Israel is investigating her killing.
Sheeran said Tuesday that he wasn’t behind the tour promoter’s decision to drop Macklemore.
“I am not complicit,” Sheeran wrote in a statement on Instagram Tuesday, saying that Macklemore leaving the tour “was the promoter’s decision, it was not mine.” It was Sheeran’s first public statement on the controversy.
Hours after Sheeran’s comments, acts began pulling out of the tour.
His backing band, Beoga, said in an Instagram post that it was leaving the tour “following the silencing of Macklemore by zionist lobbies.”
“We believe in dialogue as a means of progressing the plight of the Palestinian people,” they added. Beoga’s management did not immediately respond to requests for further comment.
Kraft’s decision to bar Macklemore from performing at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Mass. got the backing of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston.
“Mr. Kraft drew a clear moral line in the sand about the demonization and offensive conduct that he will not allow in ‘his home’,” Jeremy Burton, the JCRC CEO, said, referring to the stadium. “He also showed leadership and complexity … by rejecting those who would diminish the suffering of innocent Palestine people.”
“This decision is not about diminishing the suffering of innocent Palestinians or denying anyone the right to advocate on their behalf,” Kraft had said in his statement. “Their pain and loss are real.”
Other acts scheduled to support Sheeran on the Loop tour, including Aaron Rowe, Finneas and Lukas Graham, also withdrew Tuesday. Rowe and Lukas Graham were supposed to replace Macklemore on the remaining U.S. dates, AP reported.
It’s not yet clear what the fate of the tour is, given the withdrawal of his backing band. At least one Israeli musician joked that he was ready to put together a replacement band for “unlimited beer.”
Sheeran’s own note added, “I am appalled by the conflict between Israel and Palestine.” The British singer-songwriter wrote that he had been “involved in direct talks” between Kraft and various promoters “to try and find a mutual resolution for all.”
Sheeran didn’t mention Jews in his statement, but noted, “I have always used my platform and music to bring people from all backgrounds and cultures together and this won’t ever change.”
He also had some veiled criticism of his tourmate’s methods. “Those who come to my shows do not expect a political forum,” Sheeran wrote. “I respect Macklemore’s strength of purpose to stand up for what he believes. However, there is room for multiple approaches to the same end: peace… If we only focus on shouting the loudest, nothing will ever change.”
The Israeli-American Council, which organized a boycott against Macklemore following his New Jersey show, criticized Sheeran in a statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
“It’s time to take responsibility for giving a stage to antisemitic messaging,” the IAC said, of Sheeran. “This isn’t just ‘criticism of Israel.’ It’s a message that crosses the line between legitimate political criticism and antisemitism. This is Ed Sheeran’s stage, it’s the tour that carries his name — and so the responsibility for what happens on it is his too.”
The post Ed Sheeran’s support acts bail on Loop Tour after Macklemore dropped appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Vance: Trump willing to ‘part ways’ with Netanyahu when necessary, and has often opposed him
(JTA) —
President Donald Trump has an unprecedented track record of opposing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when it comes to advancing the interest of the American people, Vice President JD Vance said during a virtual address Tuesday at a Los Angeles-based technology summit.
More than any president in the last 40 years Trump “has shown a willingness to actually part ways with ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu when he feels like the interests of the American people are different from the interests of the government of Israel,” Vance told the All-In Summit on technology.
The claim that Trump is the “one president” who would differ with Netanyahu is one that would surprise many watchers of the U.S.-Israel relationship.
The most significant U.S.-Israel rupture since 2009, when Netanyahu was first elected prime minister, was with President Barack Obama in 2015 over Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran.
Vance’s comments were the latest in a series he has made emphasizing the widening gulf between Jerusalem and Washington as November midterm elections approach and at a time when Netanyahu’s popularity in the United States is at a low after three years of Middle East wars.
A Pew poll from the end of March, when the United States was actively at war with Iran, found that 60% of U.S. adults unfavorably view Israel and that 59% lacked confidence in Netanyahu’s handling of world affairs, an increase of 7% in both categories.
Republicans are scrambling to shuck off unpopular policies and associations, fearing the party will lose control of Congress in the midterms, a result that would cripple Trump’s agenda in the final two years of his presidency.
“I find it a little ironic … that you have Democrats criticizing Donald Trump for his relationship with Bibi when Donald Trump is the one president of the last 40 years who’s been willing to say, you know what, yeah, Bibi is a good partner, but also Bibi and I have a different opinion on this, or Bibi’s wrong about this, or maybe Bibi’s right about this from the perspective of Israel. But the American people need us to go in a different direction,” Vance said.
Trump has often touted himself as the president who has done the most for Israel, including relocating his country’s embassy to Jerusalem and rupturing Obama’s Iran deal, during his first term in 2018 and securing the release of the Gaza hostages in 2025 during his second, nonconsecutive term. The war he and Netanyahu launched against Iran in February is the first ever joint U.S.-Israeli military action.
The friendship between the two leaders is a highly public one, with Netanyahu enjoying more White House visits than any other world leader. Each has made the close ties central to their electoral campaigns. Netanyahu pitches himself as the world leader most influential with Trump, while Trump’s evangelical base lauds his closeness with Israel.
Vance, however, has often taken a harsher line, including accusing Israel of trying to manipulate U.S. public opinion on the Iran war.
“Israel has been an important partner when it comes to military technology, when it comes to intelligence sharing, but also sometimes the United States doesn’t always agree with Israel,” Vance said on Tuesday.
Serious differences have emerged since the joint U.S.-Israel goals in the Iran war – to change the regime and end once and for all Iran’s potential to acquire a nuclear weapon – have foundered. Among these has been the U.S. decision to end the Iran war without a clear plan to block the Islamic Republic’s path to nuclear weapons and its agreement to enter into a civilian nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia, without insisting on a normalization deal with the Jewish state.
“We cannot let our Middle Eastern foreign policy be subservient to the state of Israel,” Vance told the All In Summit.
Vance has also ruffled American Jewish feathers by refusing to disavow media personality Tucker Carlson, who has promoted conspiracy theories about Israel and Jews.
Vance’s remarks rankled pro-Israel figures who have otherwise been supportive of Trump’s policies.
“American foreign policy should be subservient to no country,” Jonathan Schanzer, the executive director of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, an influential think tank that backed the Iran war, wrote on X. “Why does the VP feel compelled to call out Israel in this respect? Why not call out the Qataris, or the Saudis, or Ukraine? Odd how this keeps happening.”
Heather Johnston, a Christian evangelical who founded the U.S. Israel Education Association, accused Vance on X of catering to Israel haters.
“Our U.S. foreign policy has never been subservient to Israel’s foreign policy,” she said, attaching a clip of Vance’s remarks. “He knows that. Why would he need to say that unless he’s trying to politically gain some points with Israel haters?”
The accusation hit a nerve. Vance’s communications director Taylor Van Kirk quoted Johnston’s tweet, and posted the entire exchange on X. “Let’s all take a moment to actually watch this exchange in full, where the VP was specifically asked about Israel,” Van Kirk said.
The post Vance: Trump willing to ‘part ways’ with Netanyahu when necessary, and has often opposed him appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
LA Federation sues museum for custody of looted paintings once hoarded by Hermann Göring
(JTA) — The Jewish Federation of Los Angeles and the heirs to a Jewish artist filed suit against a California museum to recover a pair of 16th-century oil paintings seized by the Nazis and held in the private collection of Hermann Göring.
Also on Monday, the daughters of Holocaust survivor Dina Gottliebova Babbitt sued the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum to recover watercolors of Roma victims she was forced to paint for Josef Mengele, the physician who tormented and experimented on inmates at Auschwitz. The artist died in 2009.
The two lawsuits were filed at the end of the filing window under a 2024 California law that permits claimants in previously dismissed lawsuits to refile for the retrieval of looted artworks. The law permits claimants to recover personal property stolen as the result of “political persecution” when earlier lawsuits were dismissed on procedural grounds.
The federation is suing the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena for the retrieval of a life-sized oil diptych of Adam and Eve by the German painter Lucas Cranach the Elder. In 1940, the Nazis seized the pair of paintings from their Jewish owner, the art dealer Jacques Goudstikker. The art wound up in the hands of Göring, the Nazi air force commander and convicted war criminal, along with about 800 other pieces from Goudstikker’s collection. The paintings eventually made their way to the Norton Simon in 1971.
In a press release, the Jewish federation said it would use the majority of the proceeds from the sale of the art to care for Los Angeles-based Holocaust survivors living in poverty. (A 2018 study from the Jewish Federations of North America found that one-third of Holocaust survivors in the United States are living below the poverty line.)
“By pursuing the recovery of the Cranachs, we are seeking to reverse a great injustice perpetrated by the Nazi theft of a Jewish family’s property, and securing the resources that will enable us to provide for the many needs of thousands of impoverished Holocaust survivors in the greater Los Angeles area so they can live in dignity for the remainder of their lives,” Rabbi Noah Farkas, president and CEO of the Los Angeles federation, said in a statement.
Goudstikker’s daughter-in-law, Marei von Saher, first sued the Norton Simon Museum in 2007, claiming the paintings belonged to her family. A 2018 ruling determined on procedural grounds that they belong to the museum.
In addition to the 2024 California law, Congress passed a law earlier this year that eliminated “state doctrine,” the principle that acts committed by foreign countries within their territory are immune from lawsuits, strengthening the cases for the heirs of Goudstikker and Babbitt.
Dina Babbitt in 2006, at work on a recreation of the “Snow White” mural that she painted in the children’s barracks at Auschwitz. Her family is seeking the recovery of the portraits she drew of Roma inmates at the concentration camp. (Lawrence Stern for The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies)
Also in 2024, 21 countries agreed to updated guidelines for restituting Nazi-looted art, which specifies that works sold to the Nazis under duress are also considered looted or stolen property.
“I am grateful to the Jewish Federation Los Angeles and its Chairman Daniel Gryczman for taking up this cause and pursuing the recovery of Adam and Eve by Lucas Cranach the Elder,” von Saher said in a statement shared with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “This effort represents a meaningful step toward justice for Holocaust survivors and victims of Nazi era atrocities.”
Jewish federations rarely file lawsuits as the plaintiffs in a Nazi-looted art restitution case. The San Diego Jewish Federation was a co-plaintiff in a lawsuit in 2015.
JTA has reached out to the attorneys for the Jewish federation for comment.
The Pasadena museum held onto the Cranachs even as other works that had been looted from Goudstikker’s collection were restituted by the Dutch government in the decades since their seizure.
“After decades of litigation, court after court including the United States Supreme Court ha confirmed that the Norton Simon Art Foundation has proper title to Adam and Eve by Lucas Cranach the Elder,” a spokesperson for the Norton Simon Museum told JTA in a statement. “We will continue to make these important artworks accessible to the public, as we have since 1971.”
The spokesperson said the museum is reviewing the complaint, and referred to a 2016 court decision that placed the artworks in their possession.
Goudstikker first acquired the paintings at a 1931 Berlin auction hosted by the Soviet authorities, which also included many works previously owned by the Russian Stroganoff family. In 1940, after Jacques Goudstikker’s death, his collection was sold to the Nazis under duress — but no cash ever came to his family.
In the Norton Simon Museum’s online catalogue, provenance cards for the works say they were “[s]aid to have been in the Stroganoff Collection” and describe the transfer from Goudstikker to Göring as “appropriated 1940.”
The quest to restitute Goudstikker’s artwork began in 1946, when his wife Désiree, an opera singer, filed a claim in the Netherlands that was initially rebuffed. Though she was able to retrieve one painting just a few years later, all of the pieces that had been seized by Göring were kept in the Dutch national collections. In later years, more than 200 artworks were returned to von Saher’s possession.
But in 1961, George Stroganoff-Scherbatoff, a descendant of the aristocratic family whose works were sold en masse along with the Cranachs, claimed the diptych from the Dutch government. He later sold the works to the Norton Simon Museum for $800,000.
In the case of the Gottliebova drawings, a spokesperson from the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum told JTA that the memorial was their appropriate home. “The drawings of Roma victims made in the camp must remain in the Memorial as part of the documentation of the crimes of Mengele,” the spokesperson for the state-run museum said.
“We fully understand the emotional approach of Dina Gottliebova’s family,” said the spokesperson, but “we express the deep conviction that the watercolors should remain at the Memorial.”
“The portraits of Roma victims are the few remaining fragments of the documentation made by Mengele as part of his criminal experiments,” the spokesperson continued. “Therefore, they should be treated as unique documents related to the history of Auschwitz.”
Earlier this month, an Argentine court ordered the restitution to van Saher of a looted painting, after the painting was spotted on a real estate website advertising the sale of a home of the daughter of a former Nazi official. The painting came from Goudstikker’s collection.
Earlier this year, a judge ruled that a painting by Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani, once valued at more than $25 million, must be returned to the descendants of its original owner, who was forced to sell the painting to the Nazis under duress.
The post LA Federation sues museum for custody of looted paintings once hoarded by Hermann Göring appeared first on The Forward.
