The Jewish Federations of North America and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations announced on Thursday that they will hold emergency meetings on June 25-26 in Washington with members of Congress and the Trump administration.
The meetings will focus on increasing security threats to Jewish American communities, especially with Israel’s involvement in conflicts with Hamas and Iran, the umbrella groups stated.
“We are facing an unprecedented situation in American Jewish history where every Jewish institution and event is a potential target for antisemitic violence,” said Eric Fingerhut, president and CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America.
The mission comes on the heels of the May 21 murders of two Israeli embassy staffers outside an event for Jewish professionals at Washington’s Capital Jewish Museum. On June 1, a man in Boulder, Colo., firebombed and threw Molotov cocktails at a small rally calling for the hostages to be freed from Gaza.
The suspects in both cases allegedly indicated antisemitic motives tied in part to the Israel-Hamas war.
The incidents are the most violent but far from the only antisemitic attacks on U.S. Jews this year.
“American Jews are not bystanders to global terror and domestic extremism. We are deliberate targets,” said William Daroff, CEO of the Conference of Presidents. “The federal government has a mandate to act, and we are here to work with Congress and the administration to ensure they have the tools they need to succeed.”
Mission delegates intend to bring forth an actionable, six-point policy plan, including increasing the Nonprofit Security Grant Program to $1 billion annually, providing federal support for security personnel costs that Jewish communities are incurring and assistance to local law enforcement.
They also intend to ask for more FBI resources for counterterrorism operations, regulating hate and inciting speech on social media, and enforcing and prosecuting existing hate crime laws.
“We are convening in our nation’s capital to partner with our representatives in Congress and the administration to restore to our community what every American deserves,” Fingerhut stated, “the ability to live freely and securely, without being targeted for who we are.”
