A bipartisan group of 125 lawmakers urged President Joe Biden on Monday to establish a “whole-of-government” approach to antisemitism, the broadest call yet for such a unified plan to combat spiking antisemitism across the country, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. 

Proposal: In a letter to Biden, the lawmakers specifically suggest that the administration establish an interagency task force to combat antisemitism, to be led by an official of assistant secretary or higher rank, and develop a “National Strategy to Combat Antisemitism.” The communique, organized by the chairs of the bipartisan Senate and House antisemitism task forces — Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and James Lankford (R-OK) and Reps. Kathy Manning (D-NC) and Chris Smith (R-NJ) — includes 33 Senate and 92 House signatories.

In the weeds: The lawmakers argue that interagency coordination should include “a broadly understood definition of antisemitism,” as some individual agencies have adopted, as well as “closer coordination” among the various entities involved in combating antisemitism, across the administration and within Congress, to share information, fill gaps and minimize overlaps. “The strategic collaboration of such entities would also send a key message to the American people and the international community that the United States is committed to fighting antisemitism at the highest levels,” the letter continues.

Off the Hill: “That Senators Rosen and Lankford, and Representatives Manning and Smith have come together with more than 100 of their colleagues — a critical moment where Members not only reached across the aisle, but across chambers as well — to stake out a position on this is a welcome and necessary show of leadership from the Hill,” the Anti-Defamation League’s director of government relations, Dan Granot, told Jewish Insider. “Our leaders cannot approach this problem passively — or haphazardly. Now is the time for a concerted, coordinated, whole-of-government strategy to address the hatred that is becoming dangerously mainstream.”

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Before the global outcry, before thousands of protestors lined city streets, before refusing a headcovering — among other trivial “transgressions” — became punishable by death, Marjan Keypour Greenblatt, founder and director of the Alliance for Rights of all Minorities, remembers what life was like growing up in an Iran that had not yet been overtaken by an oppressive theocracy. She also remembers what it was like directly after. “Life in Iran, starting [at] the onset of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, almost changed overnight,” Keypour Greenblatt told co-hosts Rich Goldberg and Jarrod Bernstein during a recent episode of Jewish Insider’s “Limited Liability Podcast.”

Then and now: “The shah of Iran is really to be credited for a lot of the modernization, and progressive and forward-thinking approaches to create a modern country, a country that was going to look for modern medicine, for modern education, including women in the cabinet…So 43 years ago, or before that, this was very, very progressive and forward-thinking, but the pace of the shah’s movement and vision for the country was not necessarily the pace that the country was able to follow and process. So for a lot of the more traditional sectors of the community of the country, and certain intellectual sectors who felt like there was not enough freedom of expression under the shah’s leadership, they wanted to see some changes and they wanted to create some, in hindsight, perhaps reforms, but what should have been a reform movement during the shah’s period in Iran ended up being a revolution. And given the fact that the shah loved the population and did not want to order the army to draw their weapons against their own civilians, the shah made a decision to leave the country and to give the people seemingly what they wanted, which was an overthrow or an end to his governance. What we see today on the streets is the complete opposite of that. Today we have leaders who are directly ordering the army, and the police, and the [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps], and the many, many different repressive elements that they have at their disposal to draw their weapons against their own people.”

On engagement with Iran: “I started my activism just over eight years ago, when in Washington there was talk about a detente and diplomatic relationships with the Islamic republic. There was a level of enthusiasm and fascination by [former Iranian President Hassan Rouhani] being elected. And, you may recall the whole ‘charm offensive’ language that was being thrown around, and people were of the belief that now we have a reformist in Iran, and therefore everything is going to be workable and therefore we should begin our so-called diplomatic relations with Iran in order to perhaps come to a nuclear agreement at the price of lifting sanctions from the regime. And at the time, because of my proximity to the White House and my access to several Iran roundtables, I was privy to certain so-called human rights activists who actually sat around the table and they believed that lifting of sanctions from repressive elements of the Islamic republic would actually help human rights in Iran, or even coming to a nuclear agreement with Islamic republic, a nuclear agreement that had nothing to do with human rights facts on the ground, would improve conditions of human rights in Iran. And I was very much against this perspective, and because I am a woman and because I am of the minority community and I had access and relationships with the Baha’is, the Sunnis, the Zoroastrians and other marginalized populations in the country, I saw all of these events in a different way, and I found it upon myself to have an alternative voice, present an alternative voice around the table.”

Lightning round: Favorite Persian food? “Two things, ghormeh sabzi and tah chin. Tah chin is like tahdig, but it’s even thicker and yummier. It’s really amazing. Crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside.” Favorite Farsi word or phrase? “‘Ghorbunet beram,’ which means ‘May I sacrifice myself for you,’ which is a term that parents and older people will say to their children. It’s like, ‘I love you,’ but because we’re intensely passionate we don’t just say ‘I love you,’ we say, ‘I love you so much, I would die for you.’ Ghorbunet beram.” Favorite place you would like to visit in Iran? “You’re gonna make me cry. You’re gonna make me cry. The parks. The parks. I have such great memories from the parks, and unfortunately, I’m literally choked up, there has been such a devastation of the environment in Iran — I hear about the trees dying and the environment just being polluted and miserable. But the parks of the 1970s in Iran, I would like to go back to those moments, and just the smell of the trees.”

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The aspect of the UJA-Federation of New York Wall Street Dinner that may have stood out the most was a number: $31 million, the amount raised that night — a haul that exceeds the annual budgets of many Jewish organizations. But last night, the tone of the awardees’ speeches belied the event’s astronomical numbers, its dark designer suits and cocktail dresses, and the catered food on offer. The awardees were unquestionably denizens of Manhattan’s financial district, but their remarks were less about their success in business than about the personal journeys they’ve gone through, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Ben Sales reports. 

Focus areas: Overall, the night brought together 1,400 people — double last year’s attendance but lower than that in 2019 — to hear about UJA-Federation’s themes of aiding Ukraine, addressing the legacy of COVID-19, ameliorating food insecurity and fighting antisemitism. Eric Goldstein, the group’s CEO, said that in recent years, UJA’s total annual grantmaking has risen from $155 million to $175 million and is likely to grow. He discussed how the cost of food has risen 12% with inflation — 16% for kosher food — and said that demand at New York-area food pantries is nearly 70% higher than it was before the pandemic. He lamented that people are paying less attention to the war in Ukraine, even though the fighting and the corresponding humanitarian crisis are ongoing. 

Honoree’s moment: The night’s main honoree, Third Point CEO Daniel Loeb, won the Gustave L. Levy Award. Last night, he pledged $3 million over two years to UJA. In his speech, he said, “Jewishly speaking, I was raised by wolves,” and narrated his experience of becoming more involved with the Jewish community. When the pandemic began, he said, a rabbi who was an early COVID patient asked Loeb to recite the Shema on his behalf — but Loeb didn’t know it. That request led Loeb to begin praying regularly and putting on tefillin — something he credited for a turnaround at his fund. Now, he said, he sends siddurim to his friends. Near the end of his speech, he quoted a line about committing to love one’s neighbor as oneself. “Say this every day,” he said. “Be kind to each other. Don’t forget to be kind to yourself. And be kind to the UJA.”

Joining communities: CNN host Van Jones, the keynote speaker, opened his speech with “an apology for the silence of my community” regarding discrimination against Jews. Jones, who is Black, invoked his Jewish godmother in calling for a renewal of the Black-Jewish civil rights alliance, and condemned Kanye West, now known as Ye, for his stream of antisemitic remarks. He repeated, “Ye, nay! Ye, nay! Ye, nay! No more, no more, no more,” to loud applause. “The reason this country is a democracy at all is because Black and Jewish people have loved each other and helped each other and supported each other,” he said. “The best in your community and the best of our community stood together.”

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Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) said the Biden administration “missed an opportunity” to reenter the Iran nuclear deal early in its term and expressed deep concerns about the incoming Israeli government during an event last week, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Conflicting visions: “I think that the Biden administration missed an opportunity early on to simply return to the JCPOA,” Van Hollen argued during the virtual event hosted by the Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development and the College of Behavior and Social Sciences at the University of Maryland, referring to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the official name for the nuclear deal signed in 2015.

Different opinion: Secretary of State Tony Blinken offered a distinctly different narrative than Van Hollen about the path back to a deal during his confirmation hearing in January 2021, describing a renewed deal as “a long way” off at that time. Talks regarding reentry into the deal have remained stalled since the late summer, after Iran made what the administration has described as “extraneous” demands outside the scope of the talks. 

Alarm bells: Van Hollen, who has been a prominent critic in the Senate of Israeli policy, called the emerging Israeli government coalition, featuring several far-right ministers, “a very worrisome development” and a “very, very difficult moment.” He added, “I know that the Biden administration is in the process of doing everything they can to try to limit the potential for damage of the inclusion of these extremist elements within the governing coalition,” and said he believes the administration “is weighing its options and doing what it can right now, behind the scenes to signal to [Israeli Prime Minister-designate Benjamin] Netanyahu what, what its limits will be.”

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