Jonathan Greenblatt: We think every state should have hate crimes laws...

After the Donald Trump's election, there was a surge of hate crimes. We saw acts of vandalism, certainly a lot of slander on social media and, in fact, in the last few months, as you mentioned, a number of bomb threats, almost 70, to dozens of Jewish community centers across the country.

Jonathan Greenblatt

community hate country

The attorney general could push and the president Donald Trump could push governors and state attorney generals to move forward with hate crimes laws all over America to protect the Jewish community and other marginalized groups.

Jonathan Greenblatt

community hate moving

We saw images and ideas from white supremacists literally shared from political campaigns showing up in the Twitter feeds of major news organizations. We saw it in our political rallies as well.

Jonathan Greenblatt

political-campaign political

The president Donald Trump took an important first step. Literally, we hadn't heard him speak in the way that he did, talking about that these threats are painful and that anti-Semitism is horrible. Of course we agree. But, as we have said for a long time, now we need the next step, which is a plan of action to calm these communities where anxiety has reached an incredibly high level.

Jonathan Greenblatt

anxiety community long

We think it's time for the president Donald Trump to announce steps for the White House to undertake. We'd like to see a White House task force on hate crimes. This could be something again convened by the attorney general, but you would bring to bear DHS, the Department of Education, the FBI and other federal agencies to use all of their resources to deal with this problem.

Jonathan Greenblatt

hate house thinking

While this is an important step forward, this move alone is insufficient and must be followed by many more changes from YouTube and other tech companies to adequately counter the scourge of online hate and extremism.

Jonathan Greenblatt

technology

It is not focused on resolving the conflict in the best interest of all parties.

Jonathan Greenblatt

us

Rising hate crimes continue to be a reality in Mainstream America, the rash of incidents we've seen recently are a reminder that we need to be vigilant against hate and anti-Semitism in all forms.

Jonathan Greenblatt

us-news

This adds to the 121 threats received since early January. It is time for action, and we call on the administration and Congress to take concrete steps to catch those threatening the Jewish community.

Jonathan Greenblatt

top-news

We join with the international community in loudly condemning these barbaric and heinous terror attacks, which have claimed the lives of hundreds of innocent people going about their lives, while the investigation continues and the terrorists ’ motivations are still unclear, we are deeply concerned at reports that The Bataclan Theater has long been a focus of anti-Zionist groups.

Jonathan Greenblatt

world

There is a serious debate taking place over the next five weeks within Congress over the Iran deal. We have called on all sides, regardless of whether one is liberal or conservative, to conduct that debate responsibly and civilly. That plea should apply to presidential candidates as well.

Jonathan Greenblatt

politics

Well, Whoopi, there’s no question that the Holocaust was about race. That’s how the Nazis saw it as they perpetrated the systematic annihilation of the Jewish people across continents, across countries with deliberate and ruthless cruelty, you see, Hitler’s ideology, the Third Reich, was predicated on the idea that the Aryans, the Germans, were a ‘master race,’ and the Jews were a subhuman race. It was racialized antisemitism.

Jonathan Greenblatt

Hitler's ideology, the Third Reich, was predicated on the idea that the Aryans, the Germans, were a master race and the Jews were a subhuman race. It was a racialized anti-Semitism, now that might not fit exactly or feel different than the way we think about race in 21st century America, where primarily it's about people of color, but throughout the Jewish people's history, they have been marginalized, they have been persecuted, they have been slaughtered, in large part because many people felt they were not just a different religion, but indeed a different race.

Jonathan Greenblatt

Double the vandals and violence than we did just a few years ago and this weekend, we had these anti-Semitic flyers drop in six different states.

Jonathan Greenblatt

We're already living in a moment where we've seen a large rise in anti-Semitic incidents, double the vandals and violence than we did just a few years ago and this weekend, we had these anti-Semitic flyers drop in six different states.

Jonathan Greenblatt

This includes making outlandish and offensive analogies suggesting that somehow Anthony Fauci is akin to Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele, known for Anthony Fauci gruesome medical experiments on concentration camp prisoners.

Jonathan Greenblatt

We are seeing... chatter from these white supremacists, from these far-right extremists -- they feel emboldened in this moment, we fully expect that this violence could actually get worse before it gets better.

Jonathan Greenblatt

We had 10 demands and literally, we went through the 10, and didn't get commitments or timeframes or clear outcomes.

Jonathan Greenblatt

Our community has been terrorized once again by violent anti-Semitism, from Pittsburgh to Poway, and now to Jersey City on Tuesday, the disease that is anti-Semitism has clearly spread to epidemic proportions.

Jonathan Greenblatt

But we will not be defeated, we will not stand down, we will not be intimidated.

Jonathan Greenblatt

We think every state should have hate crimes laws. It's worth sharing that five states today don't have hate crimes laws, including South Carolina, where a man was arraigned. He had been arrested by the FBI for plotting a Columbine-style attack on a synagogue in Myrtle Beach.