The White House is making good on an initiative it set in motion earlier this year to combat antisemitism. On Thursday, the Biden administration announced eight federal agencies are ensuring that antisemitic, Islamaphobic and related forms of discrimination are prohibited in federally funded programs and activities.
In May, the White House announced a first-of-its-kind national strategy to fight antisemitism. Designed to raise awareness, improve security, reverse normalization and build solidarity, the strategy outlined more than 100 actions federal agencies needed to finish in its first year.
As part of that plan, the Departments of Agriculture, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Labor, Treasury and Transportation are committing to ensure their staff not only understand antisemitic discrimination but are ready to respond to it in accordance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The agencies will “vigorously enforce protections within federally funded programs and activities they administer,” according to a White House statement. Those protections include shielding people from harassment or discrimination on federally funded transit systems and in federally funded housing and food programs.
The Anti-Defamation League’s annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents reported 3,697 incidents of antisemitic harassment, vandalism and assault in the United States in 2022. A 36% increase compared with 2021, the ADL said it was the highest number it had reported since tracking began in 1979 and the third time over the past five years that the year-end total was the highest ever recorded.
American Jews are disproportionately affected by religiously motivated hate crimes. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, they make up 2.4% of the country’s population but account for 63% of the victims of such crimes.
