Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff said on Thursday that the Biden administration plans to soon release new guidance on best practices for combating Islamophobia. 

Emhoff revealed the news while kicking off a roundtable on “interfaith coalition building” he convened with a group of religious leaders at the White House, after noting that many of those participating in Thursday’s meeting are “part of the interagency group that the president stood up to counter antisemitism and also Islamophobia.”

“The first deliverable, in May of 2023, was the first-ever national strategy to counter antisemitism. We are now getting into year two with additional actions. There will be an Islamophobia plan coming out soon as well, and making sure we are fighting hate wherever it exists,” Emhoff said after touting the administration’s efforts to “counter hate and restore unity.”

That deliverable was a whole-of-society approach that included more than 100 policy commitments across the executive branch and a call to action for ordinary Americans to stand together with the Jewish community in fighting antisemitism. The document does not address how precisely to define the term, following pushback by progressives to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism. Opponents of the IHRA definition argued that it conflates anti-Zionism with antisemitism.

Also at the meeting on behalf of the administration were Rashad Hussain, U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, and Stephen K. Benjamin, the director of the White House’s Office of Public Engagement. 

The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism were among the organizations that participated in the roundtable, which was closed to the press after opening remarks from Emhoff, Benjamin and Hussain. 

Emhoff stressed the importance of coalition-building and putting on a united front in the fight against hate as he addressed the group. 

“This is a very difficult time in our country, in our world. It’s a difficult time for everyone in the faith community. For so long, they’ve really stuck together and been together on so many issues because there’s so many commonalities amongst us,” Emhoff said. “So I wanted to make sure I brought everyone together, because right now we’re in a crisis, it’s a crisis of hate.”

“What better way to fight against it and bring us together than to bring a group like this together and to lean on our faith? To see and explore how we can use that deep faith that we all have together,” he continued. “There are forces out there trying to divide us. They’re trying to divide us and pull us apart and pit some of us against each other. That is not the way to go, and we cannot allow that to happen.”

Behind closed doors, one attendee told Jewish Insider, the group discussed ways to bring young people of different backgrounds together on college campuses and school settings. 

“Many of the leaders mentioned that we need to find ways that even when we disagree about one set of issues, that we’re working together on others where we do agree. We can’t create litmus tests where because of one issue, we won’t have conversations or cooperate on others,” they said. 

The White House did not respond to JI’s request for comment on a new Islamophobia strategy. 

Jewish Insider’s senior national correspondent Gabby Deutch contributed to this report.