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Europe|Doug Emhoff Stresses a Personal Push Against Antisemitism
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/09/world/europe/doug-emhoff-antisemitism-paris.html
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At an event in Paris to commemorate a 1982 attack on a Jewish deli there, Kamala Harris’s husband said, “Part of fighting hate is living openly and proudly as a Jew.”
Aug. 9, 2024Updated 1:20 p.m. ET
When Vice President Kamala Harris’s husband, Doug Emhoff, landed in Paris this week, the Summer Olympics were naturally on the schedule. He watched the U.S. men’s basketball team rally against Serbia, attended track and field events and is to lead the American presidential delegation at the closing ceremony on Sunday.
But Mr. Emhoff, the first Jewish spouse of an American vice president or president, also used his trip to focus on an issue that is far more sobering and also deeply personal: a surge of antisemitism in the United States and around the world since the war between Israel and Hamas erupted in October.
“It is a poison coursing through the veins of democracy and democratic ideals,” Mr. Emhoff said on Friday at a commemoration of a deadly 1982 attack on a storied Jewish deli in Paris. Six people were killed in that attack, including two Americans, and 22 were wounded.
“Part of fighting hate is living openly and proudly as a Jew and celebrating our faith and our culture,” Mr. Emhoff said as helicopters buzzed overhead, a reminder of the tight security that France has imposed during the Olympics. “I love being Jewish, and I love the joy that comes with being Jewish. And I’m not going to let anyone tell me how to be Jewish.”
English (US)