Act Daily News
—
Attorney General Merrick Garland spoke out towards antisemitism at Sunday evening’s National Menorah lighting.
“Together, we must stand up against the disturbing rise in antisemitism. And together, we must stand up against bigotry in any of its forms. Our democracy depends on it,” Garland stated on the lighting on the primary evening of Hanukkah.
“As a descendant of those who fled persecution because they were Jewish, it is especially meaningful to be here tonight as we light this menorah in our nation’s capital and under the protection of its laws,” he continued.
Garland’s feedback come amid an increase in antisemitic violence and crime. A 63-year-old man was assaulted in New York on Wednesday in what police are calling an antisemitic assault. On Thursday, a person hacked right into a North Carolina highschool’s intercom system and allegedly made antisemitic remarks over the loudspeaker. And on Saturday, police responded to stories of antisemitic graffiti at a Maryland highschool.
His speech additionally comes as leaders on the suitable are embracing, or failing to sentence, antisemitism. Former President Donald Trump hosted a dinner in late November with Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes and rapper Ye, previously often called Kanye West. The rapper has since made a collection of more and more extra excessive antisemitic remarks, and at one level, praised Hitler.
While some Republican lawmakers made condemned Trump’s assembly with the 2 males, many had been reluctant to go as far as to forged blame on the ex-president, together with House GOP chief Kevin McCarthy.
“All of us at the Department of Justice will never stop working to confront and combat violence and other unlawful acts fueled by hate,” Garland stated Monday. “That is our legal obligation. But, now more than ever, all Americans have a moral obligation to stand up against such hate.”
Rabbi Levi Shemtov, govt vp of American Friends of Lubavitch, stated in an interview with Act Daily News forward of the ceremony, “the message of light over darkness and its triumph over darkness, I should say, could not be more timely than in what we are going through right now with a rise in antisemitism and people becoming actually very cautious about their Jewish identity as a result.”
Shemtov has led the National Menorah lighting ceremony for greater than 30 years.