On December 11th, 2019, President Donald J. Trump signed Executive Order 13899 on Combatting Anti-Semitism. On January 29th, 2025, Trump signed his second executive order to combat Anti-Semitism. Under Section 1, the document explains:
Executive Order 13899 provided interpretive assistance on the enforcement of the Nation’s civil rights laws to ensure that they would protect American Jews to the same extent to which all other American citizens are protected. The prior administration effectively nullified Executive Order 13899 by failing to give the terms of the order full force and effect throughout the Government. This order reaffirms Executive Order 13899 and directs additional measures to advance the policy thereof in the wake of the Hamas terrorist attacks of October 7, 2023, against the people of Israel. These attacks unleashed an unprecedented wave of vile anti-Semitic discrimination, vandalism, and violence against our citizens, especially in our schools and on our campuses. Jewish students have faced an unrelenting barrage of discrimination; denial of access to campus common areas and facilities, including libraries and classrooms; and intimidation, harassment, and physical threats and assault.
There has, of course, been a rise of Anti-Semitism in the news and popular culture since the Hamas terrorist attacks, with a great deal of violence being inflicted upon the Jews globally. This particular executive order seeks to protect Jewish lives, especially nationally:
It shall be the policy of the United States to combat anti-Semitism vigorously, using all available and appropriate legal tools, to prosecute, remove, or otherwise hold to account the perpetrators of unlawful anti-Semitic harassment and violence.
Section 3 of the document then outlines several ways in which measures will be undertaken to combat Anti-Semitism on campuses. Paragraph is essential as it states that:
In addition to identifying relevant authorities to curb or combat anti-Semitism generally required by this section, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Education, and the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with each other, shall include in their reports recommendations for familiarizing institutions of higher education with the grounds for inadmissibility under 8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(3) so that such institutions may monitor for and report activities by alien students and staff relevant to those grounds and for ensuring that such reports about aliens lead, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, to investigations and, if warranted, actions to remove such aliens.
This Executive Order should not be viewed as a document which attempts to subvert the rights of different ethnic groups in favor of Jewish people, but rather as an attempt to demonstrably protect United States citizens, regardless of their ethnicity.
Though Christian perspectives vary widely on the Jewish peoples, with some Christians viewing them still as God’s chosen people, and others viewing them simply as another people group in need of the gospel, it is important to note that under the law of the United States of America, discrimination on the basis of ethnicity is not to be permitted, and under the commandments of Scripture, ought to be rejected.
The Declaration of Independence very famously states that,
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Jews, like all other ethnic groups that secure American citizenship, exist under these self-evident and unalienable rights. Even the United States Constitution exists primarily to secure and:
form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity...
Anti-Semitism, like all other forms of ethnic bigotry and prejudice, ought to be rejected by the Christian. It is, instead, the duty of the Christian to, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:19-20), and this includes Jew, Samaritan, and Gentile alike.
