During the time I served as Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism in the Obama administration, I traveled across Europe, Central Asia, and beyond, working with governments, religious leaders, and civil society to develop new strategies against antisemitism while building broader coalitions for tolerance and pluralism.
From Kazakhstan to Poland, I saw firsthand the unique value of a dedicated envoy focused on antisemitism, empowered by the State Department. At a moment when this ancient hatred is evolving and spreading across borders, the United States should strengthen, not dilute, this office’s mission.
That is why, as a former Special Envoy on Antisemitism and as the child of a Holocaust survivor, I am very concerned about the efforts by the current envoy to merge his office with that of the Special Envoy on Holocaust Issues (SEHI). The proposed merger, which could also end up with the elimination of the SEHI office, reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the responsibilities and duties of each of the offices.
The special envoy on antisemitism’s office requires diplomatic strategies, building relationships with diverse groups around the world, to identify and combat hatred of Jews wherever it rears its head, which is often and almost everywhere.
Fighting antisemitism requires meaningful conversations
When I went to a country experiencing antisemitism, it often called for bringing together people who had never been in the same room before, to condemn the hatred and to have meaningful conversations about how to prevent it.
It called for meetings with the media to educate them and to encourage thoughtful coverage of antisemitism. It called for encounters with young people who would be future leaders, and with elected leaders of countries and parties to engage in needed and sometimes urgent dialogue about what their rhetoric and policies mean for Jewish safety and security. It called for sustained engagement with those relationships.
This Administration has repeatedly invoked antisemitism and has defined it, inspired by the Heritage Foundation’s Project Esther, in quite limited ways, too often focusing on those who criticize policies of Israel.
Antisemitism, however, is much more expansive and frightening than that. It includes white nationalism, Christian nationalism, praise of Hitler and Nazis, blood libel accusations, textbook depictions and cartoons of Jews as less than human, religious screeds blaming Jews for deicide and economic downturns, conspiracy theories about supposed Jewish power, desecrations of synagogues, and physical attacks on Jewish people.
In short, the work of the antisemitism envoy is huge and all-encompassing and calls for a strong diplomatic approach. The current envoy on antisemitism, Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun, has repeatedly signalled that he lacks that deft touch.
To my great chagrin, he is the same person who falsely claimed that President Biden “won’t even make a statement about combating antisemitism,” when a year earlier Biden created the first-ever whole-of-government approach to comprehensively fight antisemitism. How can Kaploun be the US face and voice for fighting antisemitism when he can’t recognize that he was handed a complete plan and charge to do so?
Now, in a move described by Rep. Jerrold Nadler and others as a power grab, Kaploun is trying to fold the State Department’s Holocaust envoy office into his own.
The Holocaust envoy’s responsibilities are completely different and highly specialized. The office is obligated to negotiate restitution and compensation for Holocaust survivors. It is responsible for recovering Nazi-looted property and art, to preserving Holocaust archives, cemeteries, and sites of memory, and engaging in sensitive diplomacy with foreign governments on unresolved Holocaust-era obligations and accountability.
This important work calls for completely different skills and expertise, and can’t be just added to the enormous and critically important work of combating antisemitism.
'Now is the time to strengthen the antisemitism envoy’s mandated work'
The current world situation calls for enhancing the work of the antisemitism monitor, ensuring it does what it is supposed to do: build bridges, engage relationships with diverse groups, call out hatred of Jews, and ask others to do the same. Now is the time to strengthen the antisemitism envoy’s mandated work, not compromise it.
Each year there are fewer Holocaust survivors alive. Time is running out for those survivors and their families to receive justice. The office of special envoy on antisemitism and the special envoy on the Holocaust are complementary, but not duplicative. The former works to address contemporary antisemitism, hate crimes, extremism and government policy around the world. The latter focuses on historical justice, restitution, remembrance, archives and Holocaust-era accountability. The United States deliberately created separate offices because both missions are full time responsibilities.
Strong institutions should outlast administrations and individual officeholders. The structure should be around mission, not around the personalities currently serving.
This administration has repeatedly invoked antisemitism when it serves a political purpose, while weakening the institutions that actually protect Jewish communities. It cut funding and regional offices of the Office of Civil Rights at the Department of Education, which protect Jewish and all students on campus and in schools; it has hired individuals who have trafficked in antisemitism in their past; used antisemitism to justify ideological crackdowns on America’s campuses; and removed books about the Holocaust from the Naval Academy Library, while Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” remains on the shelves. The administration also refused to condemn a GOP congressional staffer who kept in his office a flag bearing the swastika, and refused to condemn supporters and former officials who flashed Nazi salutes at public events.
These are clear examples of how not to fight antisemitism. Where is the outrage when these things happen? Sadly, not from the current special envoy on antisemitism.
That is why I strongly support the amendment to prevent the elimination, consolidation, or downsizing of the Holocaust envoy’s office offered by Reps. Nadler, Brad Schneider, Grace Meng, and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. Regrettably, the amendment was not brought to order by the House Rules Committee this week, meaning that it won’t be considered on the House floor.
I hope Congress will reconsider, and prevent the Trump Administration from taking yet another step backward in the global fight against antisemitism.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media.