Press Releases

American Jewish Committee (AJC) President Harriet Schleifer today addressed the Malmö International Forum on Holocaust Remembrance and Combating Antisemitism. Schleifer stressed that “any genuine effort to remember the Holocaust and its victims must be coupled with the present-day fight against antisemitism.”

American Jewish Committee (AJC) welcomed a Texas court’s decision to recommend a new trial for Randy Halprin, a Jewish prisoner on death row who has long claimed that the judge presiding over his trial was inherently biased against Jews and other minorities. “The court reached the only possible result, that the original judge’s long uncontested and undisguised bigotry made it essential that Randy Halprin be granted a new trial,” said AJC Chief Legal Officer Marc Stern. “The district court’s recommendation that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals order a new trial is a vindication of core American principles of impartiality in American jurisprudence.”

American Jewish Committee (AJC), the leading global Jewish advocacy organization, is calling on the Marriott hotel company to apologize directly to a German Jewish man who was told to remove his Star of David necklace while waiting to check in at the Westin hotel in Leipzig. Marriott is the parent company of Westin.

“The EU should be applauded for taking this significant step toward combatting antisemitism in Europe and abroad amid the dramatic surge of Jew hatred within living memory of the Holocaust,” said Daniel Schwammenthal, Director of the AJC Transatlantic Institute, the EU office of AJC, the global Jewish advocacy organization. “It is reassuring to see that the strategy aims at tackling antisemitism whether it originates from the far-right, the far-left, Islamists or mainstream society and clearly identifies “Israel-related antisemitism” as a major problem. As the Commission notes, it is in fact ‘the most common form of antisemitism encountered online by Jews in Europe today.’”

American Jewish Committee (AJC), the leading global Jewish advocacy organization, congratulates Fernando Lottenberg on his appointment as the first Organization of American States (OAS) Commissioner for Monitoring and Combating Antisemitism. Creation of the position was initially announced by OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro at the AJC 2021 Global Forum in June.

A Spanish language edition of Translate Hate, American Jewish Committee’s widely-used glossary of common antisemitic terms and tropes, is now available at Traduciendo el Odio. “Better informing Spanish speakers across the United States and around the world about hateful rhetoric and images targeting Jews is vitally important to the global fight against antisemitism,” said Dina Siegel Vann, Director of AJC’s Belfer Institute for Latino and Latin American Affairs.

American Jewish Committee (AJC) welcomes the introduction today of a resolution in the U.S. Senate urging the European Union to designate Hezbollah in its entirety as a terror organization. The bipartisan resolution was introduced by Senators Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN).

Lithuania honored American Jewish Committee (AJC) CEO David Harris today with The Cross of the Knight of the Order for Merits to Lithuania, one of the Baltic nation’s highest awards. Lithuania President Gitanas Nausėda bestowed on Harris during a ceremony at the Consulate General of the Republic of Lithuania in New York.

honored American Jewish Committee (AJC) CEO David Harris today with one of the country’s most prestigious awards, the Grand Commander of the Order of Makarios III. Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades presented the medal to Harris during a ceremony at the residence of the Cypriot Ambassador to the United Nations in New York.

American Jewish Committee (AJC) applauds the preliminary determination by the New Jersey Department of Treasury’s Division of Investment that Ben & Jerry’s and its parent company, Unilever, have engaged in a boycott of Israel. Under New Jersey’s 2016 law on Boycott, Divest, Sanction (BDS), state pension funds must divest from investments in any business that engages in boycotts of Israel.

American Jewish Committee (AJC), the leading global Jewish advocacy organization, applauds the Burlington City Council’s decision to withdraw a non-binding resolution supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement targeting Israel. The resolution will be sent back to the Council’s Racial Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Committee for further discussion.

The film is the sixth in AJC’s Arabic-language video series, ‘An al-Yahud (“About the Jews”), which has been viewed by tens of millions of Arabic-speakers around the world. The top locations of the videos’ viewers include Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Tunisia, the West Bank and Gaza, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates.

In an unprecedented transatlantic initiative, 313 cross-party lawmakers from Europe, North America, and Israel urged EU countries and democracies worldwide to help end the discrimination against Israel at the United Nations. Spearheaded by AJC’s Transatlantic Friends of Israel (TFI), the interparliamentary statement comes ahead of tomorrow’s opening of the 76th Session of the UN General Assembly.

A new report by AJC’s Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights (JBI) finds that antisemitic violence has increased in the two years since a landmark UN report on global antisemitism warned governments of its dangers.

The Muslim-Jewish Advisory Council (MJAC) calls on more law enforcement agencies to report hate crimes data to the FBI following the release of the agency’s latest Hate Crimes Statistics report.

e Disrupt Antisemitism awards committee. “We are delighted that young Jewish leaders, and Jewish innovators, in the business, media and tech industries, have agreed to review and select the most innovative ideas to combat Jew-hatred,” said Meggie Wyschogrod Fredman, Director of AJC’s Alexander Young Leadership Department.

American Jewish Committee (AJC) is deeply troubled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s 2020 hate crime statistics, released yesterday, which showed that overall hate crimes were up and crimes targeting Jews comprised 57.5% of all religious bias crimes last year.

Led by American Jewish Committee (AJC), Secretaries of State from across the country participated today in a virtual training on combating misinformation and disinformation through the lens of antisemitism.

“Once again, Haitians are in dire need of humanitarian assistance as another major disaster has hit their island nation,” said AJC CEO David Harris. "Our tradition commands us to respond generously and compassionately to those who suffer a natural disaster, and Haiti again beckons us.”

Mayors and key staff participating in today’s training gained a deeper understanding of the range of antisemitic conspiracies, tropes, and symbols; the multiple sources of antisemitism emanating from the right, left and religious extremists; and concrete steps that can be taken on the local level to protect Jews and promote pluralism.