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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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The post Biden plan to combat antisemitism demands reforms across the executive branch and beyond appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Pennsylvania principal to be fired over antisemitic voicemail: ‘They control the banks’
A Pennsylvania elementary school principal is facing termination by his school district after he accidentally recorded himself making antisemitic remarks in a voicemail to a Jewish parent.
Philip Leddy, the principal of the Lower Gwynedd Elementary School in Montgomery County, confirmed to the Wissahickon School District that he had made the antisemitic remarks heard on the voicemail message Friday morning after he believed he had disconnected the call, according to an email sent to the district’s parents.
In the recording, Leddy made a reference to “Jew camp,” and told another staff member at the school that the parent has “Jew money” and claimed that “they control the banks,” according to the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia. Later, when asked whether the parent was a lawyer, Leddy responded, “the odds are probably good.”
“What is most concerning is not only the language itself, but the mindset it reflects,” the federation wrote in a statement. “The comments rely on well-known antisemitic stereotypes that reduce a parent to caricature and signal hostility rather than respect. For a family entrusting their child to a school community, hearing this kind of language, particularly from a principal, is profoundly unsettling.”
Leddy was hired as the principal for the Lower Gwynedd Elementary School in 2023 after previously serving as committee chair of the district’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee, according to a since-deleted profile for him on the school’s website.
In an email to the Wissahickon School District, Superintendent Mwenyewe Dawan wrote that the district’s administrative team was recommending immediate termination of Leddy, pending an “informal private hearing on Monday morning.”
The school district did not immediately respond to a request for an update on the hearing from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency Monday morning.
Dawan wrote that Leddy had been placed on administrative leave, and that another staff member heard on the call was also placed on paid administrative leave pending an investigation.
“The fact that any employees entrusted with the care and well-being of students could make, or passively tolerate, such remarks raise concerns that extend beyond the conduct of a single individual,” wrote Dawan. “This incident underscores concerns for broader, systemic issues related to antisemitism that must be examined and addressed.”
The Jewish parent, who requested anonymity, told Action News 6ABC that Leddy had initially called him in response to an email about an incident involving his daughter.
“I couldn’t believe it, like I was seeing Jew this, Jew that, and I was thinking, ‘This can’t be the principal leaving a voicemail,’” the parent told Action News 6ABC.
Rabbi Kevin Lefkowitz, the leader of Tiferet Bet Israel, a Conservative congregation in Montgomery County, told Action News 6ABC that Leddy’s rhetoric had “boiled my blood.”
“He’s in charge of keeping our kids safe. For it to come out of his mouth so carelessly, so easily, it boiled my blood,” Lefkowitz said.
The incident comes one month after the House Education and Workforce Committee launched an investigation into the School District of Philadelphia for allegedly promoting a hostile environment for Jewish K-12 students.
In 2024, Pennsylvania saw 465 antisemitic incidents, marking a 18% rise from 2023, according to the Anti-Defamation League’s annual antisemitism audit.
“No one promoting antisemitic rhetoric should be leading and teaching our children,” said Andrew Goretsky, the senior regional director of ADL Philadelphia, in a post on Facebook. “We are urging them to fully investigate the situation, take the appropriate systemic action, and meet with Jewish families to begin the process of rebuilding trust.”
In her email to the district community, Dawan added that the school had already partnered with the ADL to provide trainings on antisemitism and bias response to the district’s administration in November and December, and that the trainings would be provided to the rest of its teachers and staff as planned.
‘While this incident is clearly deeply damaging, upsetting, and concerning, it is important to remember that our staff as a whole are deeply caring, respectful, and sensitive,” wrote Dawan. “I do not believe the actions and words of this principal reflect the views of our staff. One person’s hateful actions should not negatively impact the way our community views the rest of our staff.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Pennsylvania principal to be fired over antisemitic voicemail: ‘They control the banks’ appeared first on The Forward.
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‘Jew Money’: Pennsylvania School District Principal Faces Termination Over Antisemitic Voicemail
Philip Leddy, principal of Lower Gwynedd Elementary School in Pennsylvania, faces termination for allegedly making antisemitic comments. Photo: Screenshot
The Wissahickon School District (WSD) in Pennsylvania has initiated termination proceedings against a school principal who allegedly, and accidentally, left an antisemitic voicemail on the answering machine service of a Jewish parent, in another blow to a district already under scrutiny for previous instances of alleged anti-Jewish outrages.
Philip Leddy, principal of Lower Gwynedd Elementary School, spoke of a “Jew camp,” “Jew money,” and argued that Jews “control the banks” in reference to a Jewish parent he had called but did not reach, according to local media reports. The remarks were recorded when Leddy forgot to hang up his line after the parent, whom he at one point suggested is most likely an attorney for being Jewish, did not take the call. Having assumed that what he was about to say was private, he then reportedly launched into the tirade before an audience of at least one other district employee also present in the room.
Leddy has been placed on administrative leave, and school district officials will, according to local reports, recommend his immediate termination.
“The principal self-reported to our administration that he had indeed left the message, thought the call had disconnected, and then continued talking,” Wissahickon School District superintendent Mwenyewe Dawan said in a statement to the community. “In the call, the principal can be heard making antisemitic comments and speaking disparagingly about the parent to another staff member who was in the office at the time.”
She added, “We moved swiftly with immediate action to start the process seeking the principal’s termination.”
According to the North American Values Institute (NAVI), education research nonprofit, Dawan has a close relationship with Keziah Ridgeway, a history and anthropology teacher in Philadelphia who promoted anti-Israel activism in the classroom. Ridgeway was placed on administrative last year for social media posts alluding to violence against certain Jewish parents whose names she allegedly posted on social media. Supporters of Ridgeway argue she was the victim of a smear campaign.
On Friday, the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia rebuked Leddy’s comments, saying they betrayed a “mindset” that is indicative of a “broader, systemic issue.”
“The presence of others in the room, the lack of challenge or interruption, and the comfort with which these remarks were spoken raise serious questions about culture, accountability, and oversight within the school environment,” the group continued. “We understand the district is also investigating the involvement of others whose voices are audible on the recording, which is a necessary and appropriate step. Words spoken behind closed doors matter. When those words reflect bias, they erode trust and harm entire communities.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, the Wissahickon School District has been flagged for previously fostering what some parents described as antisemitic bias.
In June, it was revealed that the district is presenting as fact an anti-Zionist account of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to its K-12 students by using it as the basis for courses taken by honors students.
“On May 14, 1948, Israel declared itself an independent nation: Based on a [United Nations] Mandate but not supported by other countries in the region; Recognized by the US and much of the non-Arab world; Expelled up to 750,000 Palestinians from their land, an event called ‘al-Nakba,’” says the material, provided by virtual learning platform Edgenuity, which implies that Israel is a settler-colonial state — a false assertion promoted by neo-Nazis and jihadist terror groups.
“Nakba,” the Arabic term for “catastrophe,” is used by Palestinians and anti-Israel activists to refer to the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948. Based on documents obtained by The Algemeiner, the material does not seemingly detail the varied reasons for Palestinian Arabs leaving the nascent State of Israel at the time, including that they were encouraged by Arab leaders to flee their homes to make way for the invading Arab armies. Nor does it appear to explain that some 850,000 Jews were forced to flee or expelled from Middle Eastern and North African countries in the 20th century, especially in the aftermath of Israel’s declaring independence.
Another module reviewed by The Algemeiner contains a question based on a May 15, 1948, statement from The Arab League — a group of countries which adamantly opposed Jewish immigration to the region in the years leading up to the establishment of the State of Israel and refused to condemn antisemitic violence Arabs perpetrated against Jewish refugees — after Israel declared its independence. The passage denies that Jews faced antisemitic indignities when the land was administered by the Ottoman Empire, a notion that is inconsistent with the historical record, and asserts that “Arab inhabitants” are “the lawful owners of the country.”
One parent — who agreed to be interviewed at the time on the condition that she be allowed to speak anonymously because her young child still attends school in the Pennsylvania district — told The Algemeiner that antisemitism in WSD has long been a problem and that its inclusion in the curriculum will lead to anti-Jewish violence. The parent, who described feeling “isolated,” explained that the school district holds events which celebrate the cultures of every minority group except Jews.
The district reemerged in the news cycle again this month following reports that during a recent demonstration at Wissahickon High School, a Muslim student group festooned signs which said, “Jerusalem is ours,” offered cash prizes related to anti-Israel activism, and swayed school principal Dr. Lynne Blair into being photographed with them, a feat which, according to concerns members of the community, created the impression that anti-Zionism is a viewpoint held by the administration.
“Wissahickon leadership keeps insisting this was just a cultural event, but the community sees it for what it was — intimidation wrapped in keffiyehs and candy,” NAVI told The Algemeiner at the time. “Even a blind squirrel occasionally trips over a nut, and in this case, the nut is the explosive reality that schools are no longer neutral grounds. When a superintendent publicly supports one side of a geopolitical conflict inside a public high school, it stops being education and starts being indoctrination. Jewish students deserve better, and every school district in America should take notice.”
Earlier this month, administrative officials representing Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro vowed to monitor K-12 antisemitism in another major school district in Pennsylvania, the School District of Philadelphia (SDP), citing rising incidents of hatred across the city.
“Governor Shapiro takes a back seat to no one on these issues, and as he has repeatedly spoken out about antisemitism, and this kind of hateful rhetoric is unacceptable and has no place in Pennsylvania — especially not in our classrooms,” Rosie Lapowsky, a spokesperson for Shapiro, said in a statement first shared with Fox News Digital. “This is a matter the governor has made clear the district needs to take very seriously.”
Lapowsky’s comments come days after the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce began investigating antisemitism in SDP, as well as other districts in Virginia and California, following reports of antisemitic invective, bullying, and inciting language regarding the murders of two Israeli embassy staffers earlier this year.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Netanyahu to Discuss Iran, Next Phase of Gaza Plan With Trump
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a joint press conference with Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis (not pictured) after a trilateral meeting at the Citadel of David Hotel, in Jerusalem, Dec. 22, 2025. Photo: ABIR SULTAN/Pool via REUTERS
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday he will discuss Iran’s nuclear activities during his visit next week with US President Donald Trump.
Speaking at a joint press conference with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides in Jerusalem, Netanyahu said Israel was aware Iran had been conducting “exercises” recently, without elaborating.
Earlier on Monday, Iranian state media reported Iran had held missile drills in various cities during the day, the second such reported exercise in a month.
Western powers regard Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal as both a conventional military threat to Middle East stability and a possible delivery mechanism for nuclear weapons should Tehran develop them. It denies any intent to build atomic bombs.
Relations between eastern Mediterranean neighbors Israel, Greece, and Cyprus have grown stronger over the past decade, with shared concerns over Turkey’s influence in the region.
ISRAEL NOT SEEKING CONFRONTATION: NETANYAHU
Despite “great achievements” during a 12-day war with Iran in June, Netanyahu said basic Israeli and US expectations of Iran were unchanged, including lowering its uranium enrichment level.
“Obviously it will be an item in our discussions,” he said of his meeting with Trump next week, adding, “We are not seeking confrontation with” Iran but rather, “stability, prosperity, and peace.”
Still, Netanyahu said the focus of his discussions with Trump in Washington will be on moving to the next phase of Trump’s Gaza plan as well as dealing with Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorists.
He cited Israel‘s “desire to see a stable sovereign Lebanon” and efforts to prevent the blocking of international shipping by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi forces.
Netanyahu, Mitsotakis, and Christodoulides agreed to deepen security cooperation, while Netanyahu said the three countries intended to advance an initiative to connect India to Europe via the Middle East by sea and rail.
Christodoulides described the projects as offering a “southeastern gateway connecting Europe with the Middle East and beyond.”
The three countries said they would seek to advance an undersea power cable project to integrate their electricity grids with Europe and the Arabian Peninsula.
Mitsotakis said Greece was a gateway for liquefied natural gas. “[It] is a new energy hub in southeastern Europe.” Interconnection projects, he said, remained a key priority for the three countries.
Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen told Reuters after the press conference the trilateral meeting was important since it comes when there are “countries that are working to uproot regional stability.” He did not identify the countries.