U.S. President Joe Biden holds a photograph of Holocaust victims on the day he addresses rising levels of antisemitism at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's Annual Days of Remembrance ceremony at the U.S. Capitol building in Washington on May 7.Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters
U.S. President Joe Biden condemned what he called “a ferocious surge of antisemitism in America and around the world,” and said that an upswing in such incidents is “absolutely despicable and it must stop.”
He made his remarks on Tuesday at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s annual Days of Remembrance ceremony, which every president has addressed since the museum opened in Washington 31 years ago. This time, the President’s words were infused with an unusual poignancy. He was speaking after months of renewed concern about antisemitism, particularly on university campuses, where students have protested, camped on lawns and occupied buildings in opposition to Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip.
“I am calling on all Americans to stand united against antisemitism and hate in all its forms,” said Mr. Biden, whose three children all married into Jewish families. He addressed Jewish Americans directly, saying, “I see your fear and your heart.”
“You are not alone,” he added. “You belong. You always have and always will.”
Mr. Biden said he had taken his grandchildren to tour the remains of the Nazi concentration camp at Dachau, Germany. He spoke of a hatred that “continues to live deep in the hearts of too many people in the world,” and condemned the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, which sparked the war.
A day before Mr. Biden’s remarks, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre, appearing at a similar event in Ottawa, spoke out against antisemitism in Canada. The leaders made the remarks the same day B’nai Brith Canada, a Jewish human-rights organization, released a report saying that the number of antisemitic incidents in Canada had reached a record high in 2023, with more than twice as many episodes as the group recorded in 2022.
“These kinds of speeches in Ottawa and Washington are meaningful, they are validating and they provide an opportunity to set out initiatives to address the situation we are confronted with today,” Shimon Koffler Fogel, the chief executive officer of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, the advocacy group for Jewish federations across Canada, said in an interview. “These speeches do more than bring a degree of comfort. They bring some reassurance to the Jewish community that is under such pressure today.”
The group is supporting Ontario’s Bill 166, which would give the province oversight of postsecondary institutions’ anti-racism policies. The proposed legislation has sparked concern among some educators about political interference.
A year ago, Mr. Biden created a National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism. During his Holocaust-remembrance speech, the President said the new agency is now “mobilizing the full force of the federal government to protect Jewish communities.”
In co-ordination with Mr. Biden’s speech on Tuesday, his administration released guidelines for how educational institutions should define antisemitic discrimination and other hate speech that could lead to federal prosecutions.
The President made his speech less than a week after the U.S. House of Representatives, by a 320-91 vote, approved an antisemitism bill that soon will go before the Senate. The measure would require the federal Department of Education, for the purposes of enforcing anti-discrimination laws, to employ the definition of antisemitism crafted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. This is a standard used in half the American states that some civil libertarians nonetheless consider a breach of freedom of expression, and that others have said unfairly conflates criticism of Israel with hatred of Jewish people.
The American Jewish Committee said in its 2023 report on antisemitism that nearly 63 per cent of American Jews had told a survey that the status of Jews in the U.S. had grown less secure over the past year. Three out of four American Jews said the Hamas attacks made them feel less safe at home, and about half said fear of antisemitism had prompted them to alter their behaviour.
The problem seems most acute on university campuses. A quarter of current or recent Jewish college students said they felt uncomfortable or unsafe at campus events, according to a leading advocacy group for Jews and Israel. A quarter also said they had avoided wearing or carrying identifying religious objects.
Mr. Biden said there is “no place on any campus” for antisemitic rhetoric or acts.
There is political advantage for Mr. Biden in saying these things. He took 68 per cent of the Jewish vote in 2020, and Jews have supported the Democratic nominee in every election in the past 100 years – sometimes, as in 1940 and 1944 for Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and in 1964 for Lyndon Johnson, at levels at or beyond 90 per cent.
Some Democrats believe such remarks enhance Mr. Biden’s profile as the November election approaches.
“In this election, when it comes down to the swing voters who are still undecided – maybe a very small percentage – a president who consistently does his best to demonstrate moral leadership will benefit,” said Steven Grossman, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee and a former president of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the leading pro-Israel lobby group. “These kinds of speeches, this kind of rhetoric, the moral clarity in trying to turn language into positive action, makes a difference.”