WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Joe Biden said a spate of antisemitic attacks are terrorizing American Jews and “must stop.”
“In the last weeks, our nation has seen a series of anti-Semitic attacks, targeting and terrorizing American Jews,” Biden said in a statement released Friday.
Secure Community Network, which coordinates security for American Jewish institutions, says antisemitic attacks, including vandalism and physical attacks, have increased 80 percent over the last month, spurred in part by Israel’s war with Hamas earlier this month.
Biden named some of the attacks. “We have seen a brick thrown through [the] window of a Jewish-owned business in Manhattan, a swastika carved into the door of a synagogue in Salt Lake City, families threatened outside a restaurant in Los Angeles, and museums in Florida and Alaska, dedicated to celebrating Jewish life and culture and remembering the Holocaust, vandalized with anti-Jewish messages,” the statement said. “These attacks are despicable, unconscionable, un-American, and they must stop.”
Biden did not mention measures he was taking but referred to a memo Attorney General Merrick Garland sent Justice Department staff on Thursday. Garland said he would increase resources to streamline the reporting of hate crimes, designate staff to enforce civil and criminal civil rights statutes, and increase coordination with local communities.
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