feature
BIDEN’S ANSWER TO
CHARLOTTESVILLE The president’s plan to
combat antisemitism
demands reforms
across the executive
branch and beyond
Ku Klux Klan members stage a demonstration in downtown Charlottesville, Virginia, to protest the removal of Confederate memorials in July 2017.

At the Unite the Right Rally in August, a counterprotester was killed.

P resident Joe Biden last week 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 stretch 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
18 JUNE 1, 2023 | JEWISH EXPONENT
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 several 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.

Areas of controversy
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
Erin Scott/Polaris/Newscom
Ron Kampeas | JTA