Yesterday President Biden spoke for 15 minutes (full text of remarks) in a teleconference for the upcoming Jewish High Holidays which begin Monday evening. The virtual call was sponsored by the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the Rabbinical Assembly, the Rabbinical Council of America, and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association. Biden's wide-ranging remarks included the following:
I used to think coming out of the Civil Rights Movement and being involved in the Jewish community as a kid ... that hate could be defeated, it could be wiped out. But I learned a long time ago, it can’t. It only hides. It hides. It hides under the rocks. And given any oxygen at all, it comes out. It’s a minority view, but it comes out and it comes out raging.
And it’s been given too much oxygen in the last 4, 5, 7, 10 years.... I remember spending time at the ... Tree of Life Synagogue.... [T]he attack in Pittsburgh, ... — all anti-Semitic attacks — aren’t just a strike against the Jewish community; they’re a strike against the soul of our nation and the values which we say we stand for. No matter its source or stated rationale, we have to and will condemn this prejudice at every turn, alongside other forms of hate.
