Press Releases and Statements

American Jewish Committee (AJC) has worked and consulted with Meta on issues relating to antisemitism for several years and was proud to continue this partnership by participating in Meta’s Policy Forum. As part of these discussions, AJC shared how the word “Zionist” is often used as coded language to attack Jews and Israelis and about the offline harm this proxy language has on Jewish life around the world.

American Jewish Committee (AJC) today welcomed the U.S. Department of Education’s announcement that it has entered into a resolution agreement with Brown University to ensure that Jewish students’ rights are protected under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The agreement also includes protections for students with Palestinian, Arab, and/or Muslim ancestry.

American Jewish Committee and its three New York-based regional offices today welcomed a joint statement from New York Attorney General Letitia James and New York’s 62 district attorneys acknowledging the alarming jump in antisemitic hate crimes and their commitment to aggressively prosecute those crimes.

American Jewish Committee CEO Ted Deutch, an alumnus of the University of Michigan, released a statement after the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) announced Monday an agreement with the university following a Title VI investigation. Title VI prohibits discrimination based on race, color or national origin.

American Jewish Committee welcomes the efforts by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) to hold CUNY accountable for its woefully inadequate efforts to protect Jewish students, faculty, and staff from discrimination, intimidation, and harassment.

American Jewish Committee (AJC) CEO Ted Deutch today testified at the House Ways and Means Committee hearing “Crisis on Campus: Antisemitism, Radical Faculty, and the Failure of University Leadership.” Deutch previously served as a Member of Congress from Florida and was the Chair and Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and was a founding co-chair of the House Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Antisemitism.

Amid a massive surge in anti-Zionist and antisemitic incidents at colleges and K-12 schools around the country, American Jewish Committee (AJC) today announced at AJC Global Forum the establishment of the Center for Education Advocacy. The Center will work to transform educational spaces for Jewish students by preparing young Jews to be leaders in high school, college, and beyond; working with university presidents, trustees, and faculty as well as K-12 administrators to create academic environments where Jews and Zionism can thrive; and by empowering parents to advocate for their children and for the Jewish community.

After a school year marked by rising antisemitism, protests extolling Hamas and other terrorists, and shocking harassment of Jewish students on college campuses across the United States and around the world, American Jewish Committee (AJC) today honored three student leaders representing outstanding campus organizations with the Sharon Greene Award for Campus Advocacy at its annual Global Forum.

American Jewish Committee (AJC) and the Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI) in North America today announced an historic partnership aimed at forging closer ties between Israeli and American Jewish teens and addressing growing rates of antisemitism in private non-Jewish high schools.

Following Hamas’ brutal massacre on October 7, antisemitism has risen to distressing levels around the world. At this unprecedented time, American Jewish Committee (AJC), the global advocacy organization for the Jewish people, has brought together Jewish communities worldwide in a united Global Call to Action Against Antisemitism.

American Jewish Committee (AJC), the global advocacy organization for the Jewish people, and the Conseil Représentatif des Institutions Juives de France (CRIF), the umbrella organization gathering major French Jewish institutions, today announced the launch of an annual transatlantic summit on combating antisemitism.

Entertainment leaders gathered for the first-ever “Countering Antisemitism: An Entertainment Industry Summit”. Launched by Jewish advocacy and entertainment experts, the Summit was jointly held by American Jewish Committee, Creative Community for Peace, an entertainment-industry nonprofit, and Creative Artists Agency a leading entertainment and sports agency. Hundreds of entertainment professionals joined for the full day of programming. The Summit featured Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff, with Van Jones, Political Analyst, Eli Roth, Actor/Director, Scott Budnick, Producer, and Jennifer Jason Leigh, Actress.

The “Confronting Hate Together” exhibit at the Wing Luke Museum offered an important opportunity for a much-needed conversation about discrimination and bigotry. Instead, the staff who have shut down the museum are engaged in the very hate the exhibit is meant to address. They are censoring Jewish voices, offering to promote only a single point of view and demanding that leadership cancel the exhibit altogether.

Students from two New York colleges told leading education policymakers and legislators that they are worried the flood of anti-Israel and antisemitic incidents they endured over the last year may flare up again when classes resume in the fall. Molly Goldstein, a senior at Cornell University, and Esti Heller, who recently graduated from SUNY Purchase, were part of an advocacy day at the state capital on May 21 led by the New York, Long Island, and Westchester/Fairfield regional offices of American Jewish Committee (AJC).
“Jewish students don’t feel safe going forward. This is not the end – even if it is the end of the semester,” Goldstein told a news conference. “It’s something we must all continue to work on… so we can protect all students, so we can get the education we deserve.”

The face of antisemitism completely changed following the Hamas terrorist attacks against Israel on October 7, 2023, and left American society leaders wondering how they can respond meaningfully to this new manifestation of the world’s oldest hate.

Recognizing the need to provide all of society with not just the tools to prevent and combat antisemitism, but also to understand what antisemitism is and how it can present itself in various forms, AJC today released a newly updated and expanded Call to Action Against Antisemitism, a Society-Wide Nonpartisan Guide for America.

A student group at Washington, DC’s largest high school, which had sued to compel the school to screen a documentary filled with antisemitic tropes and conspiracies, has agreed not to show the film. A coalition of Jewish groups, including American Jewish Committee, and Jewish parents had supported the school’s decision to stop the film from being shown.

A coalition of Jewish groups today said it backed a Washington, D.C. high school’s decision to ban the screening of a documentary that traffics in antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theories, at a time when Jewish and Israeli students at the school have felt threatened since the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre.

As antisemitic intimidation, harassment, and violence rise on university campuses in the U.S. and Europe, American Jewish Committee (AJC) joined European and American Jewish community leaders and government officials for the third annual European Conference on Antisemitism, to assess the threat to Jewish students and civic order, and urge comprehensive action by campus administrators.

American Jewish Committee (AJC) thanks President Biden for his resolute commitment to combating antisemitism and protecting Jewish communities, highlighted in remarks delivered today at a Holocaust Remembrance Event at the U.S. Capitol seven months after Hamas carried out the deadliest attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust and in the wake of yesterday’s remembrance of Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day).

American Jewish Committee’s (AJC) Paris office released preliminary findings of its Survey of Antisemitism in France 2024 which showed that younger French people are more likely to hold antisemitic beliefs and French Jews under 25 years old are more likely to be the target of antisemitic incidents. Yet, even with rising antisemitism, the survey also found profound resilience among French Jews who are overwhelmingly embracing their Jewish and Zionist identities, with nearly three-quarters of French Jews saying that the October 7 massacre strengthened their Zionist convictions (73%) and their Jewish identity (71%).