During a visit to Poland and Germany scheduled to coincide with International Holocaust Remembrance day on Jan. 27, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff said governments around the world must take immediate action to fight rising antisemitism.
(Bloomberg) — During a visit to Poland and Germany scheduled to coincide with International Holocaust Remembrance day on Jan.
27, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff said governments around the world must take immediate action to fight rising antisemitism.
Emhoff, the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, is the first Jewish person to be married to a US president or vice president, and has become a leading voice against antisemitism in President Joe Biden’s administration.
“We cannot just speak out — this moment requires bold action,” Emhoff said Monday during a meeting in Berlin with special envoys from foreign governments tasked with monitoring antisemitism.
“We must take action right now because we’ve seen what can happen when we don’t,” added Emhoff.
In December, Biden created a government task force to devise a national strategy on antisemitism as incidents of anti-Jewish hatred in the US have reached levels not seen since the end of World War II.
Emhoff did not offer policy recommendations, but said he would speak with envoys about what is and isn’t working in their countries and relay that feedback to the US task force.
The European Union released its own strategy in 2021 for combating antisemitism and protecting Jewish communities on the continent.
Deborah Lipstadt, the US special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, accompanied Emhoff and said she was planning to hold a series of meetings on violence motivated by “right-wing extremism.”
“Events in one country are too easily replicated in other countries,” she said.
“This is not something we can say it’s your problem anymore. It’s an international problem.”
In Poland, Emhoff visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp to mark the 78th anniversary of its liberation.
He also toured the city of Gorlice, where it is believed his great-grandparents fled persecution in the early 1900s by emigrating to the US.
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