WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is creating an inter-agency group charged with coordinating U.S. efforts to combat antisemitism and other forms of bias after a string of high-profile episodes that have alarmed the Jewish community.
The group, to be led by staff from the Domestic Policy Council and National Security Council, will work to “increase and better coordinate U.S. government efforts to counter antisemitism, Islamophobia, and related forms of bias and discrimination within the United States,” according to a statement Monday from White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
“The president has tasked the inter-agency group, as its first order of business, to develop a national strategy to counter antisemitism,” she said in the statement. “This strategy will raise understanding about antisemitism and the threat it poses to the Jewish community and all Americans, address antisemitic harassment and abuse both online and offline, seek to prevent antisemitic attacks and incidents, and encourage whole-of-society efforts to counter antisemitism and build a more inclusive nation.”
Other government bodies and institutions involved include the Departments of State, Homeland Security, Commerce, Education and Health and Human Services, as well as the FBI, the Director of National Intelligence and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, according to a White House official.
Last week, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, the first Jewish spouse of a U.S. president or vice president, held a roundtable with White House officials and Jewish leaders to discuss rising antisemitism. Emhoff vowed to use his historic perch to speak out against bias and discrimination and urged other Americans to join him.
“It hurts me to see what we’re going through right now. Antisemitism is dangerous. We cannot normalize this. We all have an obligation to condemn these vile words,” Emhoff said.
Emhoff’s long-planned meeting took on added significance after former President Donald Trump in November hosted Nick Fuentes, a White supremacist, and the rapper Ye, who formerly went by Kanye West and has made a string of antisemitic comments, at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
