6 | JUNE 22 • 2023 

1942 - 2023

Covering and Connecting 
Jewish Detroit Every Week

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people of greater Detroit and beyond, and the State of Israel.

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Detroit Jewish community, reflecting the diverse views and interests of the Jewish community while advancing the 
morale and spirit of the community and advocating Jewish unity, identity and continuity.

DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
32255 Northwestern Hwy. Suite 205,
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248-354-6060
thejewishnews.com

 
 
Publisher
The Detroit Jewish 
News Foundation

| Board of Directors:
 Chair: Gary Torgow
 Vice President: David Kramer 
 Secretary: Robin Axelrod
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 Board members: Michael J. Eizelman 
 Larry Jackier, Jeffrey Schlussel, 
 Mark Zausmer
 
 
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 Marni Raitt 
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 Founding Publisher 
 Philip Slomovitz, of blessed memory

 

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opinon
The Hole in Biden’s Antisemitism Plan
O

n May 25, the Biden 
administration 
published its much 
anticipated U.S. National 
Strategy to Counter 
Antisemitism.
It was much 
anticipated, 
in large part 
because of 
the alarming 
and well-
documented rise 
in antisemitic 
attacks 
against American Jews and 
Jewish institutions. To the 
administration’s credit, this 
rise in antisemitic attacks led 
to the White House investing 
considerable resources to 
shape and create its 60-page 
National Strategy.
Before the plan was 
released, practically 

every mainstream Jewish 
organization had urged the 
White House to use the 
most accepted definition 
of antisemitism, adopted 
by numerous democratic 
governments and Jewish 
institutions around the world 
— the IHRA definition.
After all, it’s common sense 
that before one can solve a 
problem, one has to define it. 
Albert Einstein supposedly 
once said that if he were 
given an hour to solve a 
problem, he would spend 55 
minutes defining the problem 
and then five minutes solving 
it.
The reason the IHRA 
definition is so important 
is that it captures how 
antisemitism has evolved 
over the last 100 years to 
include not only irrational 

xenophobic hatred for the Jew 
as an individual, but also for 
the Jews as a nation — that is, 
hatred of Israel and Zionism.
The late U.K. Chief Rabbi 
Lord Jonathan Sacks defined 
antisemitism as “Denying 
the right of Jews to exist 
collectively as Jews with 
the same rights as everyone 
else. It takes different forms 
in different ages. In the 
Middle Ages, Jews were hated 
because of their religion. 
In the 19th and early 20th 
century they were hated 
because of their race. Today, 
they are hated because of 
their nation state, the State of 
Israel. It takes different forms, 
but it remains the same thing: 
The view that Jews have no 
right to exist as free and equal 
human beings.”
More importantly, 

Rabbi Sacks noted how 
the 21st century version of 
antisemitism has mutated 
in a way that allows haters 
to deny the hate: “The new 
antisemitism has mutated 
so that any practitioner of 
it can deny that he or she 
is an antisemite. After all, 
they’ll say, I’m not a racist. I 
have no problem with Jews 
or Judaism. I only have a 
problem with the State of 
Israel. But in a world of 56 
Muslim nations and 103 
Christian ones, there is only 
one Jewish state, Israel, which 
constitutes one-quarter of one 
percent of the land mass of 
the Middle East. Israel is the 
only one of the 193 member 
nations of the United Nations 
that has its right to exist 
regularly challenged, with one 
state, Iran, and many, many 

Micha 
Danzig
Jewish 
Journal

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