Lawmakers from the House Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Antisemitism met yesterday with representatives of the FBI to discuss the agency’s 2021 hate crimes report, released on Monday, which was hampered by the failure of many major local law enforcement agencies to report data. Lawmakers pressed the FBI leaders on the reasons for the gaps, as well as other issues in their hate crimes enforcement procedures regarding antisemitism, according to Rep. Kathy Manning (D-NC), a co-chair of the task force.

The reporting lapses — which included non-participation from areas with significant Jewish populations, including New York City, Los Angeles and nearly the entire state of Florida — stemmed from changes in the way the FBI collected data this year. Previously, it had used multiple systems to collect hate crimes reports; this year, it only took data submitted through the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), and many local law enforcement agencies failed to sign up for the system in time to report data for 2021.

“When you attack one of us, anyone, that is picking a fight with 20 million other New Yorkers,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said at meeting on antisemitism attended by New York elected officials and local Jewish community leaders on Monday morning. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas also attended the summit, hosted by the Orthodox Union at the Lincoln Square Synagogue on the Upper West Side. The event’s key takeaway: There’s no place for antisemitism in this country, least of all in New York.

“This is our family. This is who we are as New Yorkers, we embrace everyone,” Hochul said at the convening, organized in response to rising threats and violence against the tri-state area’s Jewish communities.

The FBI’s hate crimes statistics for 2021 showed that Jews remained the largest target of religious-based hate crimes, but the overall statistics likely undercounted the overall scope of hate crimes as a result of a significant drop in reporting by local law enforcement agencies, according to the Department of Justice.

The statistics showed that Jews were the target of 324 reported hate crimes in 2021. But overall reporting of hate crimes by local law enforcement to the FBI — which is voluntary — dropped significantly, from 81% of law enforcement agencies nationwide in 2020 to just 63% in 2021. 

Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) is a longtime Methodist, having joined the church in the mid-1980s before marrying his wife. But in his decade in Washington, Portman has been a prominent voice for Ohio’s Jewish community, whose leaders are mourning the retirement from Congress of an ally and friend.

In his two terms in the Senate, Portman has promoted policies to combat the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, worked to expand the Nonprofit Security Grant Program and been a vocal supporter of Israel and the Abraham Accords. The longtime Ohio legislator is the ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and a member of the Foreign Relations Committee.

Lahav Harkov, The Jerusalem Post’s senior contributing editor and diplomatic correspondent, is as prominent of a figure on Twitter as she is within Israel’s political journalism scene.

Harkov, who moved to Israel at the age of 17, is the Post’s point person for all things relating to Israeli foreign policy and its revolving door of prime ministers. She also co-hosts The Jerusalem Post’s own podcast: “The Yaakov and Lahav Show,” alongside Editor-in-chief Yaakov Katz.

What began as a diplomatic endeavor two years ago came full circle on Tuesday when Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Gilad Erdan touched down in Abu Dhabi with a group of diplomats representing 15 countries around the globe.

The ambassadors were part of the latest cohort of diplomats traveling with Erdan to the Middle East. As Israel’s envoy in Turtle Bay, Erdan has made it his personal mission to bring colleagues to the Jewish state. The addition of the United Arab Emirates, he explained, was a natural extension of the Abraham Accords, signed two years ago, which normalized relations between Israel, the UAE, Bahrain and, months later, Morocco and Sudan. UAE Ambassador to the U.N. Lana Nusseibeh organized the UAE portion of the trip.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi will meet with a group of Jewish leaders in Washington on Thursday, Jewish Insider has learned. Sissi will be in Washington for the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, a gathering organized by President Joe Biden that is expected to bring more than 50 African delegations to the U.S. capital. 

In 2019, Sisi met with an Orthodox Jewish delegation in Cairo. That group was led by Ezra Friedlander, an Orthodox lobbyist who had urged Congress to posthumously award the congressional gold medal to Anwar Sadat, the Egyptian ruler who signed a peace agreement with Israel in 1978. 

In the wake of former President Donald Trump’s dinner with rapper Kanye West and white nationalist Nick Fuentes, and West’s recent antisemitic tirades, a bipartisan group of more than 40 House lawmakers has signed on to support a resolution “condemning antisemitism by public figures,” Jewish Insider has learned. 

The resolution asserts that “with increasing frequency, influential public figures, celebrities, and foreign government officials use social media platforms to spread their antisemitic, hateful views, including Holocaust denial and praise for Adolf Hitler” and that “there has been a marked increase in prominent public figures using hate speech online.”