President Biden, standing in front of six candles symbolizing the six million Jews killed during the Holocaust, delivered on Tuesday the strongest condemnation of antisemitism by any sitting American president.
For Jews monitoring a spike in hate crimes and instances of antisemitic rhetoric amid pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses, Mr. Biden’s speech at a Holocaust remembrance ceremony at the Capitol was both fiercely necessary and fiercely appreciated. The Anti-Defamation League, which has been tracking antisemitic incidents since the 1970s, says the number of such episodes has reached all-time highs in four of the last five years.
“In an unprecedented moment of rising antisemitism, he gave a speech that no modern president has needed to,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, the chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League. “There has not been a moment like this since before the founding of the state of Israel. We have said it will never get worse, but then it has.”
Still, if the president thought he might change minds with his emotional and deeply personal speech — recalling his father’s discussions about the Holocaust at the dinner table and taking his grandchildren to former concentration camps — there were few signs he had caused many to reconsider their views. Instead, initial reactions fell along ideological lines.
Republicans dismissed his comments as meek, while supporters of Palestinians on the left attacked him for conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism.
Warren David, the co-founder of the Arab America Foundation, an advocacy group, said it was disappointing that Mr. Biden has not spoken more forcefully against anti-Arab racism and the death toll in Gaza.
“I wish that he would also give a speech and talk about the lives of Palestinians that have been lost, and the pain and the agony that we as Palestinians and Arab Americans feel,” said Mr. David, who added that he condemns antisemitism. “Biden has to give more attention in his discourse to Palestinians and Arab Americans.”
The president spoke seven months to the day after the terrorist attack on Israel by Hamas on Oct. 7. About 1,200 people were killed along Israel’s border with Gaza and more than 200 were taken hostage in the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.
Echoes of the Holocaust have loomed in the background of the debate over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Activists have relied on slogans evoking the Holocaust both to defend and to attack Israel. While supporters of Israel chant and post on social media the phrase “Never again is now,” critics of Israel frequently invoke the idea that “never again means never again for anyone.”
On Wednesday, several leaders of three public school districts will be questioned by members of a House committee that has already questioned four college presidents about campus antisemitism, leading to the resignations of two of them.
For months, Mr. Biden and other Democrats have faced unrelenting protests against steadfast support of Israel. But the speech Tuesday and his remarks last week about the campus protests signaled that the president appears more concerned with shoring up support among moderates than with rallying the left flank of his party.
Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, who spoke before Mr. Biden on Tuesday, won applause when he decried racism, sexism and Islamophobia, along with other forms of hate. Mr. Biden kept his focus more squarely on antisemitism and offered an “ironclad” commitment to Israel, its security and its existence as an independent state “even when we disagree.”
“To the Jewish community, I want you to know: I see your fear, your hurt, your pain,” Mr. Biden said. “Let me reassure you, as your president, you’re not alone, you belong, you always have and you always will.”
Representative Jared Moskowitz, a Florida Democrat who is Jewish and has relatives who escaped or were killed in the Holocaust,…
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