Last week, Katie headed out to the Aspen Ideas Festival to speak with visionaries in different fields. During her time at the festival, she hosted a panel of experts who sounded off on the recent resurgence of “the oldest hatred” — antisemitism. These experts discussed how they’ve personally been affected by antisemitism and why we all must fight against hostility and violence toward Jewish people.

Joining Katie in conversation was Douglas Emhoff, the second gentleman of the United States, and the first Jewish spouse to an American president or vice president. Eric Ward — who’s spent over three decades as a leader in the racial justice movement and is the executive vice president of Race Forward — appeared on the panel as well. Lastly, Dr. Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall — the White House Homeland Security Advisor — added her insight. 

You can watch their in-depth conversation in this video. Plus, check out our favorite moments below.

Katie Couric: Eric, you’ve been studying the intersection of antisemitism and white nationalism for decades. Explain how these two movements are related. 

Eric Ward: For me, it started in the punk clubs of Los Angeles in the 1980s. We found our music subculture under attack by individuals who were calling themselves neo-Nazi skinheads. We loved our music scene, so we spent the next 10 years organizing to prevent this type of violence and intimidation. We noticed on their flyers — which were violently racist, homophobic, Islamophobic, you name it — that there was always a symbol, like a star of David, a reference to the Zionist Occupation Government, or caricatures of Jews. I came to understand antisemitism — like many of my friends — because we were trying to understand what was motivating these groups to carry out this act of violence in our subculture. 

At the core of much of the hate groups organizing in this country is the idea that Jews are part of an international conspiracy to control and destroy the white race. It’s the basis for the great replacement theory and QAnon. I came to take anti-Semitism seriously because I understood that it wasn’t just impacting the Jewish community. All of us are becoming victims of antisemitism. Whether we’re talking about the mass shooting of Latinos in an El Paso Walmart, the Tree of Life Synagogue, the Buffalo supermarket shooting of African Americans, or the Gilroy Garlic Festival. All of these mass shooters attacked communities of color because they believed that we were merely puppets of a Jewish conspiracy. Anti-Semitism is a threat to all of us. It’s a form of racism. It places Jews not as a religious other, but as a racial other: Something other than human. As racial justice activists, we should oppose all forms of racism, including antisemitism. 

What happened in Charlottesville, Virginia had a huge impact on the country. President Biden has said that seeing those neo-Nazis march in Charlottesville was what spurred him to run as a rebuke of the bigotry and extremism that had flourished under former President Donald Trump. I’m curious what President Biden has told you, [Doug Emhoff] about how he was affected by that. 

Doug Emhoff: We’ve talked many times about how much that impacted and appalled him. He wanted to fight for the soul of our nation, which is what he talked about during the 2020 campaign. 

There’s only one side you have to be against: Antisemitism. Period. There are no two sides to this issue. True leaders like Joe Biden and Kamala Harris know that there’s only one side. You have to be against hate, and you have to stand together. 

Before I went to Europe to go to Auschwitz and meet with the special envoys in Berlin, [Biden] pulled me aside into the Oval Office. I asked, ‘Am I in trouble?” But he just wanted to talk to me about his own father. His father would always talk to him as a young child about the evils of antisemitism. Biden Sr. was always so upset that we as a government back then [during the Holocaust] didn’t do more with the information that we had. We didn’t drop bombs on the train tracks or other things. [Biden Sr.] put in President Biden’s brain as a young man that this was evil. [President Biden] shared with me how he and his family have all been to Dachau to make sure that they saw it with their own eyes. He wanted me to know as I was going on this trip that it wasn’t just because of Charlottesville — this goes back to when he was a young man. So he’s had a lifetime of having this belief that this is evil and wrong. The Holocaust happened, we’ve gotta tell the truth about it, and we’ve gotta make sure leaders are leading this fight against hate and antisemitism. People ask me, “What’s it like being second gentleman?” I say, “Being able to have moments like that with a leader is truly remarkable.”