Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas joined leaders in New York to discuss a rise in antisemitic hate crimes.

His speech before the Orthodox Union highlighted that 63% of religious hate crimes in the U.S. in 2021 were motivated by antisemitism. He added that there was a 34% increase in antisemitic crimes last year.

“Our United States Department of Justice is fully dedicated to the prosecution of hate crimes. I and others will be engaging with investigators and prosecutors in cities and states across the country – with city attorneys, district attorneys, state attorneys general and others – to ensure that violent acts of antisemitism and other forms of hate are addressed at every level, to the fullest extent of the law,” Mayorkas said.

Mayorkas noted the anxiety the Jewish community has long felt.

“As a child, I did not have regular sleepovers with friends, and I didn’t go to sleep-away camps like many of my friends did,” he said. “The horror of the Holocaust that my mother lived through – that most of her family did not survive – defined my mother’s fear of her young children being away from home, and her frame of mind that hatred of Jews can mean violence even in what one thinks are the safest of places.”

The rise has been particularly stark in New York City. The city reported 195 incidents of hate crimes directed at the Jewish population from January through September 2022. During the first nine months of 2021, there were 141 incidents reported.

“After decades of hard-won progress, tamping down antisemitism in America, we have now experienced a dramatic resurgence in the last few years,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who is also a Jewish resident of Brooklyn. “Not only slurs, not only graffiti, and threats, all of which are abhorrent and unacceptable, but also physical violence against our Jewish brothers and sisters. Sometimes tragically deadly.”

WASHINGTON —

President Joe Biden on Monday expressed alarm about growing antisemitism in the United States and around the globe and vowed to fight back against the scourge.

Speaking to guests gathered for a Hanukkah reception at the White House, Biden said “silence is complicity,” and added that it’s imperative that hate, violence and antisemitism are condemned by the nation.

“This year’s Hanukkah arrives in the midst of rising and emboldened antisemitism at home — and quite frankly, around the world,” Biden said. “I recognize your fear, your hurt, your worry that this vile and venom is becoming too normal.”

The president added: “I will not be silent. America will not be silent.”

The holiday celebration comes during a spate of antisemitic episodes. Former President Donald Trump hosted a Holocaust-denying white supremacist at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida. The rapper Ye expressed love for Adolf Hitler in an interview. Basketball star Kyrie Irving appeared to promote an antisemitic film on social media. Neo-Nazi trolls are clamoring to return to Twitter as new CEO Elon Musk grants “amnesty” to suspended accounts.

“Today, we must all say clearly and forcefully: Antisemitism and all forms of hate and violence in this country have no safe harbor in America,” Biden said.

The Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish civil rights group, tracked 2,717 antisemitic instances of assault, harassment and vandalism last year, a 34% increase over the previous year and the highest number since the New York City-based group began tracking them in 1979.

Doug Emhoff, the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, recently hosted a White House discussion on antisemitism and combating hate with Jewish leaders representing the Reform, Conservative and Orthodox denominations of the faith. At the event, Emhoff, who is Jewish, said he was “in pain right now” over rising antisemitism.

Among those invited to Monday’s White House event were Holocaust survivor Bronia Brandman; Michele Taylor, who is U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Human Rights Council and the daughter of Holocaust survivors; and Avigael Heschel-Aronson, the granddaughter of Jewish theologian Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel.

Also present was a rabbi, Charlie Cytron-Walker, who managed to usher his congregants to safety during a synagogue hostage crisis earlier this year. He credited security training that his suburban Fort Worth, Texas, congregation had received over the years for getting him and the other three hostages through the traumatic, 11-hour ordeal.

At the White House celebration, he noted that antisemitism was a growing problem in America but expressed thanks that many Americans — including Biden — are speaking out.

“Antisemitism may be on the rise, but thank God that people are standing by our side,” said Cytron-Walker, who is now a rabbi at Temple Emanuel in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

A menorah has been added to the White House holiday collection this year, lit nightly during the eight-day Jewish festival of Hanukkah. White House carpenters built the menorah out of sterling silver candle cups and wood that was saved from a Truman-era renovation.

While the White House has borrowed menorahs of special significance in the past, Biden said the addition was needed.

“This year we thought it was important to celebrate Hanukkah with another message of significance, permanence,” Biden said. “The very promise of America is that we all are created equal and deserve to be treated equally throughout our entire lives.”

President Joe Biden released what he says is the most ambitious and comprehensive us government-led effort to fight antisemitism in American history.

CEO Ted Deutch of American Jewish Committeesays we all have a role to play.

The four pillars of the national strategy include raising awareness, improving security, reversing normalization and building solidarity.

The Department of Education has been tasked with ensuring college campuses take antisemitic acts seriously, and that Jewish students aren't excluded. The Department of Homeland Security has action items to make sure hate crimes are reported. The Small Business Administration, the Department of Labor, and the Department of Commerce will all highlight better diversity, equity and inclusion trainings so Jewish experiences are included.

"But then there are also more than 100 items that the that the administration calls on others to do,” Deutch said. “Congress should pass laws to ensure that social media companies are keeping their networks free of hatred that can lead to violence. It calls on Congress to pass more funding to provide security for nonprofit institutions. It calls on state and local governments to take action. There will be efforts among sports leagues to help elevate this issue."

This action from the Biden administration is in response to the rise in antisemitism across the country.

Deutch says 40 percent of American Jews feel less secure in their own country than they did a year ago.

The Anti-Defamation League which tracks incidents of antisemitic harassment says 2022 had the highest number of incidents on record since ADL began tracking in 1979.

Deutch says he knows the national strategy will work because there are timelines that have been established, and people the administration has made responsible for making sure these actions come to fruition.

He says everyone must come together to fight antisemitism and strengthen democracy.

Craig Greenberg, who is running to become the next mayor of Louisville, Kentucky, was nearly hit by gunfire Monday.

The Democrat said a man stood at the doorway of his campaign office and began shooting Monday morning. Greenberg said one of his staffers managed to slam the door closed before the man ran off.

"I am blessed. My team is blessed. No one was injured today," Greenberg said during a press conference.

The mayoral candidate said one bullet grazed his sweater, but no one was struck.

Police Chief Louisville Metro Police Chief Erika Shields said the suspect was detained shortly after the shooting.

The shooter's motives are unknown.

"Mr. Greenberg is Jewish, so there's that," Shields said. "We don't know if it's tied to the candidate, political or if it's— are we dealing with someone who has mental issues or is venomous, I don't know."

Throughout the last two years, there has been a rise in antisemitism in the country. Jewish leaders say the acts of hate are also a reflection of our democracy.

Rabbi Jay Streat, the president and CEO of Jewish Colorado, has seen it evolve firsthand.

“Not only have the historic tropes of antisemitism, bigotry racism, homophobia been allowed but the association of those behaviors have now been connected with the most horrendous violence," Rabbi Streat said.

A new report released by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) says nearly one out of every four Jews in the U.S. has been the subject to anti-Semitism over the past year.

“Here in Denver, a week or so ago, we had grotesque, disgusting antisemitic, racist, bigoted expressions spray-painted on a local high school," Rabbi Streat said.

Rabbi Joseph Black, with Temple Emanuel in Denver, Jews are being targeted across the country.

“I just heard last weekend from a friend of mine who is a rabbi is Austin, Texas. There were neo-Nazi rallies, there was a fire outside of a synagogue. At Georgetown University, a Jewish fraternity was broken into and a Tora scroll, our most sacred object, was desecrated and torn to bits," said Rabbi Black.

“What we are enduring now, I think, is a stain on democracy but it is also a call to act in our community, to rise up to values and to call out those voices and those behaviors," Rabbi Streat said.

The report also found 39% of American Jews changed their behavior in the last 12 months out of fear of antisemitism. Many have avoided things like posting online content and are removing identifiable pieces.

“I wear a Kepa every single day and I am abundantly aware of the Black man experience that he cannot step out of his skin. And so when I go into a store and I want to take my Kepa off or put a hat on to hide my identity, I think about that a lot," Rabbi Streat said.

Rabbi Streat says it’s why he always chooses to keep his identifiable items on. He knows others that also face injustices don’t have that privilege.

“When we start hiding who we are, we are allowing the racists and the haters to win," Rabbi Black said. “It is vitally important that we create allies and find things that bind us together but in the process of doing so, we have to look at who we are. And the history of white privilege, that I, as a Caucasian American Jew, have benefited from. I think it is important that I am there for the people of color in my community, and in other communities. The LGBTQ, the immigrants, the Asians, the African Americans, every different group who is targeted by hatred, we need to work together.”

The AJC is characterizing this rise in antisemitism as a severe problem in the nation.

“We need Jews and African Americans, and the full panoply of ideologies and ideas and lifestyles and behaviors and expressions of self to stand shoulder to shoulder to say this is actually America," said Rabbi Streat. “We need to be invited into the Black community, the Muslin community, the Sikh community, as do we need to continue to invite those individuals into our community. Not to agree but to raise up a level of empathy.”