Strategies for the Executive Branch: Understanding, Responding to, and Preventing Antisemitism

AJC's Combating Antisemitism Playbook
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Antisemitism is testing the strength of American democracy.

Antisemitic incidents in the U.S. have risen significantly over the past decade. Since the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israelis on October 7, 2023, antisemitism has surged—in violent attacks, on college campuses, across social media, and in everyday public life. AJC’s State of Antisemitism in America 2025 Report shows widespread fear and a significant impact on daily life, particularly among younger American Jews:

  • 91% of American Jews say they feel less safe in the United States because of violent antisemitic attacks in the past year.
  • 55% report that they have changed their behavior in the past year out of fear of antisemitism—for example avoiding wearing or displaying Jewish symbols or avoiding certain places.
  • 47% of young American Jews (ages 18–29) say they were personally targeted by antisemitism in the last year, compared with lower rates among older Jews.

When Jewish Americans feel unsafe, the promise of equal protection under the law is weakened—and so is public trust in our institutions. Antisemitism does not arise in isolation; it grows when social trust weakens, misinformation spreads, and national unity frays.

The White House and federal agencies play a vital role in defending civil rights, promoting national unity, and responding to threats that undermine both the safety of Jewish communities and democratic norms. At this moment, the Executive Branch must use the full weight of its authority and resources to understand, respond to, and prevent antisemitism through a coordinated, whole-of-government strategy.

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AJC’s Priority Recommendations are:

  1. Establish a U.S. Action Plan to Counter Antisemitism and Foster Jewish Life: A national action plan that is fully funded, rigorously enforced, regularly evaluated, and embedded across public institutions and at the state level, channeling political will into accountability and effective enforcement.
  2. Appoint a national coordinator on antisemitism: Designate a senior White House official to oversee a whole-of-government response, including interagency coordination and accountability.

 

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Understanding Antisemitism

To protect Jewish Americans and strengthen democracy, the Executive Branch should improve data and accountability, and raise awareness across agencies.

  • Strengthen government knowledge, data collection, and transparency: 
    • Conduct assessments to evaluate how federal departments track and respond to antisemitism; create mechanisms to collect and share antisemitism-related data across agencies for better coordination and accountability. 
    • Provide regular training for federal personnel on contemporary antisemitism, including digital and transnational forms
    • Expand statutory data categories to capture religious identity more fully, improve reporting of police-recorded hate crimes, and include everyday discrimination or denial-of-service incidents (e.g., being refused a taxi, denied a hotel, or blocked from a restaurant) to surface discrimination that falls below the threshold of violence. 
    • Track and publish data on antisemitism-related complaints, prosecutions, and convictions to ensure judicial transparency and build trust for victims.
  • Affirm Executive Order 13899: Continue urging federal agencies to consider the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism as a non-binding tool to help identify evidence of antisemitism, acknowledging that speech alone, no matter how offensive, is nonetheless protected.
    • Efforts to address issues in educational institutions—including antisemitism—should be clear, transparent, and focused, while respecting the autonomy and academic freedom of higher education.

A Strong Example of the Usefulness of the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism:

The United Kingdom government was the first country to formally adopt the IHRA working definition in 2016, and it has been widely used by police services, local authorities, and universities to inform hate‑crime training, reporting, and policy guidance. Many British regional and municipal bodies have also formally endorsed it, embedding it into institutional responses to antisemitism.

 

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Responding to Antisemitism

The Executive Branch must act swiftly, clearly, and within the bounds of the Constitution to respond to antisemitism, protect Jewish communities, and uphold American values.

  • Speak with moral clarity: The President and senior officials should consistently and clearly condemn antisemitism, responding with equal resolve wherever it arises across the political spectrum and avoiding politicization or selective enforcement.
  • Protect Jewish communities: Intensify enforcement and coordination among DHS, DOJ/FBI, and other agencies to prevent and respond to antisemitic hate crimes.
    • Expand security support: Increase funding and access to FEMA’s Nonprofit Security Grant Program and DHS cybersecurity programs for Jewish institutions.
    • Consider funding cuts or conditions only when necessary, ensuring transparency and protecting institutional autonomy and academic freedom.
  • Ensure robust enforcement of civil rights laws: Strengthen and synchronize federal civil rights enforcement to protect Jews from discrimination, harassment, and coercion. The Department of Justice should play a central role here.
    • Strengthen Title VI enforcement: The surge in shared ancestry complaints—now numbering in the thousands—demands improved coordination across federal agencies to ensure timely investigation, resolution, and clear guidance for educational institutions. Delays and fragmented enforcement undermine trust and leave students vulnerable.
    • Reinforce Title VII protections in the federal workplace: Title VII applies fully to federal employees. Ensure clear guidance and enforcement to protect Jewish employees from harassment, exclusion, and religious coercion.
    • Ensure consistent enforcement: Federal agencies should rigorously apply the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) as well as other lesser known, but crucial civil rights protections. 
  • Improve reporting and transparency
    • Modernize hate crimes and discrimination data: Update and improve hate crimes data systems and close reporting gaps.
    • Provide guidance and support: Agencies should offer accessible assistance to individuals and institutions navigating Title VI complaints.
    • Enhance accountability and enforcement for educational institutions: Increase investigative staff and bolster regional offices at the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, maintain a real-time public database tracking complaints and resolutions to ensure timely responses, and impose transparent, targeted consequences on institutions that fail to uphold Title VI while respecting academic freedom. 
  • Counter online hate: Pursue a coordinated federal strategy against antisemitism on social media, gaming, and AI platforms that emphasizes “freedom of speech, not freedom of reach.” Even as content moderation evolves, safeguards are still needed to protect privacy, secure data, and prevent offline harms to Jewish communities and all Americans, while avoiding approaches that could bypass international hate speech protections or undermine global cooperation.
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Preventing Antisemitism

Efforts to address antisemitism must go beyond reactive, symptom-focused measures to instead address the root causes. 

  • Establish a U.S. Action Plan to Counter Antisemitism and Foster Jewish Life: A national action plan that is fully funded, rigorously enforced, regularly evaluated, and embedded across public institutions and at the state level, channeling political will into accountability and effective enforcement.
  • Appoint a national coordinator: Designate a senior White House official to oversee a whole-of-government response including interagency coordination and accountability.
  • Ensure federal AI systems and procurement standards include safeguards against antisemitic bias, misinformation, and discriminatory outputs.
  • Reinvest in prevention and trust-building programs: Expand DHS’s Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention and DOJ’s NO HATE Act and Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Program. Revive funding for prevention programs such as the Community Relations Service (CRS) to strengthen hate crimes prevention and community outreach. Reinforce CRS and U.S. Attorney Offices to build community trust through regular engagement with Jewish and faith-based organizations.
  • Build strong federal-state partnerships: Strengthen coordination with state and local governments to reinforce religious freedom protections and ensure consistent, effective responses to antisemitism nationwide.
    • Support state and local action plans: Encourage and support states and municipalities in developing and implementing their own comprehensive strategies to respond to and prevent antisemitism, building on effective models such as state-level initiatives in Florida, California, and elsewhere.
    • Improve hate crime reporting and data consistency: Urge states to strengthen laws and policies requiring timely and accurate reporting of hate crimes by local law enforcement to state authorities and federal systems. Clear reporting requirements and standardized data collection are essential to understanding the scope of antisemitism and ensuring accountability.

 

A Best Practice in National and State Action Plans: 

Germany embeds antisemitism strategies at both federal and state levels, creating layered prevention. Germany has a federal national strategy and coordinator to combat antisemitism and foster Jewish life, and many federal states (Länder) also develop their own approaches and strategies and/or appoint state antisemitism officers as part of broader efforts.

 

  • Confront foreign and state-backed antisemitism: Treat transnational and state-sponsored antisemitism as a national security threat, prioritizing coordinated diplomatic, intelligence, law enforcement, and regulatory action. Counter foreign malign influence—including covert or proxy activities that incite antisemitism and undermine democracy—and explicitly address regimes and actors that weaponize antisemitism. Improve awareness and information-sharing to ensure timely prevention and response, including with state and local authorities, given plots against Jewish and Israeli targets in U.S. cities.
    • Strengthen transparency and accountability: Strengthen transparency and accountability by rigorously enforcing and modernizing the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and Section 117 of the Higher Education Act of 1965, and by advancing complementary measures to increase social media platform transparency on foreign influence campaigns, improve federal–state threat information sharing, and expand public reporting on state-backed antisemitic activity and related enforcement actions.
  • Counter malicious bot-driven manipulation and coordinated inauthentic behavior: Treat large-scale bot networks and coordinated inauthentic behavior as national security and public safety threats when used to spread antisemitism, distort public discourse, or undermine democratic institutions. The Executive Branch should lead a coordinated, cross-agency strategy to:
    • Strengthen attribution and intelligence coordination: Direct federal agencies to identify and publicly attribute foreign-sponsored bot networks and influence operations targeting U.S. audiences.
    • Disrupt infrastructure and financing: Use existing legal authorities—including sanctions, criminal investigations, and financial enforcement—to dismantle coordinated bot networks (bot farms), proxy networks, and influence-for-hire operations.
    • Enhance information-sharing with platforms and partners: Establish clear mechanisms for voluntary data sharing between federal agencies, technology companies, and allies to detect coordinated manipulation and respond quickly.
    • Focus enforcement on deceptive conduct, not protected speech: Target fraud, undisclosed automation, foreign sponsorship, and other unlawful activity while safeguarding free expression and civil liberties.
  • Promote global best practices: The State Department’s Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism should share—with foreign and domestic audiences—best practices from countries implementing national strategies and utilizing the Global Guidelines to Counter Antisemitism, of which the United States is the author. 

 

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