Mr. President:
On one thing both your supporters and detractors can agree: you call it as you see it, without euphemisms or diplomatic niceties.
That’s why your equivocation and seeming defensiveness on the subject of anti-Semitism are so puzzling. On January 27, International Holocaust Memorial Day, the White House issued a statement that, inexplicably, did not mention anti-Semitism, the ideology that drove the Holocaust, or Jews, its target for total annihilation.
Instead, it spoke generically and euphemistically of “innocent people” who perished, and referred to “victims,” “survivors,” and “heroes” without any national or religious identification.
Mr. President, questions about anti-Semitism are especially timely now. On the very day you appeared with the Israeli leader, federal officials in South Carolina arrested a man suspected of planning an attack on a synagogue.
On that day as well, the New York City Police Department reported that, as of February 12, fully half—28 out of 56—of the hate crimes committed in the city since the start of the year were of an anti-Semitic nature, the only category of hate crimes that reached double digits.
And this comes as we witness this week the fourth round of bomb threats against Jewish Community Centers across the country, and as swastikas and other Nazi hate symbols have been proliferating on college campuses and storefronts, at bus stops and train stations across the country. Attacks on Jews constitute the largest category, both in the aggregate and proportionally, of religion-based hate crimes in the United States.
Mr. President, in the American spirit, we urge you to condemn what has often been called “the oldest hatred”—anti-Semitism ― and unleash the power of government to match deeds with words.
Sincerely,
David Harris and Lawrence Grossman
