The FBI reported on Monday that antisemitic hate crimes hit record-high levels in the United States in 2023, increasing 63% from 2022, a rise that one Jewish leader called “staggering.”

In 2023, 1,832 anti-Jewish hate crimes were reported to the FBI’s data collection program, making up the majority of reported religious-based hate crimes (68%) and far outpacing any other type of religious-based hate crime. Those incidents encompassed 2,002 specific offenses against 2,069 victims (including both individuals and institutions).

Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign has hired two new operatives to join its Jewish outreach team, including one staffer working specifically in the state of Pennsylvania, signaling the crucial role Jewish voters are expected to play in the presidential election on Nov. 5.

Eva Wyner will join the campaign this week as director of Jewish outreach in Pennsylvania, a key swing state that both the Harris and Trump campaigns view as a must-win. Wyner comes from New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office, where she has served as Hochul’s deputy director of Jewish affairs for New York State since 2021. 

Catherine Lhamon, the assistant secretary of education for civil rights, told lawmakers on Friday that existing federal law and procedures make it unlikely that any schools will lose their federal funding over antisemitic activity on their college campuses in the near term.

Some lawmakers have honed in on threats to colleges and universities’ federal funding as a method of pressuring or penalizing them over their failure to protect Jewish students. But Lhamon explained at a roundtable with congressional Democrats that pulling funding requires a yearslong litigation process under current federal statute.

As hundreds of heads of state convene in New York City throughout the week for the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Antonio Tajani, Italy’s deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs, emphasized support for Israel in its ongoing war against Hamas at an event held Sunday evening on the sidelines of UNGA. 

Speaking at the invitation-only event hosted by the European Leadership Network (ELNET), Tajani told the approximately 70 attendees — prominent business and philanthropic leaders in both the Jewish and Italian communities — that there “is a link” between the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine. “The names of the links are Iran and Russia. This is a dangerous situation,” he said, noting that the world is divided into a battle between “democracies” versus “autocracies.”  

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is declining to back state Attorney General Dana Nessel, a fellow Democrat, who has been attacked by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) over Nessel’s decision to charge anti-Israel campus demonstrators at the University of Michigan for assaulting police and engaging in ethnic intimidation, among other alleged crimes.

Tlaib has also suggested that Nessel is only charging the protesters because she’s Jewish. Nessel has publicly decried the congresswoman’s characterization as antisemitic and wrong.

Award-winning novelist Elisa Albert was set to moderate a panel at Saturday’s Albany Book Festival, a literary event she attends annually, until she received an email on Thursday from one of the festival’s organizers about a “crazy situation developing.”

“Basically, not to sugar coat this, Aisha Gawad and Lisa Ko don’t want to be on a panel with a ‘Zionist,’” the organizer said, naming two of the three other authors with whom Albert was set to appear on a panel. 

A group of House Democrats outspoken on antisemitism issues are joining Jewish groups, the White House and the Harris campaign in condemning former President Donald Trump’s Thursday evening remarks about the Jewish vote.

Trump claimed in a speech on Thursday evening, aimed at attracting Jewish voters, that, “the Jewish people would have a lot to do with the loss” if he loses the November election.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, the campaign arm of House Republicans, announced on Friday that it was adding two frontline congressional candidates with questionable records on antisemitism to its prestigious Young Guns program.

The Young Guns program, which aims to boost challengers in key swing districts, provides extra assistance and guidance to designated candidates and is a marker of which candidates and races the NRCC sees as its top priorities.