Doug Emhoff to chair White House roundtable with Jewish groups on rising antisemitism

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The White Home will convene a roundtable with Jewish organizations on antisemitism, to be chaired by Douglas Emhoff, the Jewish Second Gentleman.

Additionally showing on the occasion will probably be Susan Rice, President Joe Biden’s high home coverage advisor; Deborah Lipstadt, the State Division’s particular envoy to observe and fight antisemitism; and Keisha Lance Bottoms, Biden’s senior advisor for public engagement, the White Home stated Monday in a press release.

Biden has made combating antisemitism and different bigotries a centerpiece of his agenda; he launched his marketing campaign in April 2019 by saying that the lethal 2017 white supremacist march in Charlottesville, Virginia, and former President Donald Trump’s failure to unequivocally condemn it, made him resolve to run for president.

Antisemitic expression has spiked following Elon Musk’s elimination of content material controls after he bought the social media big Twitter and unabashed antisemitism embraced by rapper and designer Kanye West. Biden convened a White Home summit in September to handle the menace extremism poses to numerous communities.

The Division of Homeland Safety final week issued a terrorism advisory bulletin that the Jewish, LGBTQ and migrant communities face a “persistent and deadly menace,” NBC reported final week.

The identical day, Sen. Ben Cardin, a Jewish Democrat from Maryland, convened a gathering of high company officers who deal with the specter of antisemitic violence.

“We are able to and ought to be doing extra,” Cardin, who convened the assembly in his function as chairman of the the USA’ efforts to supervise human rights overseas, stated after the assembly. “A unified, nationwide technique on countering antisemitism is required. Whereas discovering the correct stability between defending free speech and defending People from hurt, we have to up our recreation, rebuild coalitions with different teams which have been the goal of hate-based violence, and institutionalize coordination that counters antisemitism wherever it’s discovered.”

Emhoff, whose spouse is Vice President Kamala Harris, stated that his time on the job has made him extra delicate to Jewish custom and to threats going through Jews.

“And coming in as Second Gentleman, I assumed being the primary man on this function can be the headline and it was,” Emhoff stated final week at a convention of NewDEAL, a bunch of younger progressive elected officers. “However just like the one factor was being the primary Jewish particular person of any of the 4. There’s by no means been a Jew married to a president, or vice chairman, or has been president or vice chairman. Because it seems that has grow to be a really massive deal within the Jewish group and in different communities that aren’t represented.”

Emhoff warned towards apathy relating to antisemitism. “So I don’t need it to really feel regular,” he stated. “I don’t need individuals to assume nicely it’s simply phrases, it’s simply Kanye, no — this issues. That is vital. We’ve got to all step up and converse out about this as leaders in your communities.”