Hannah Rosenthal knows her new position fighting anti-Semitism will include responding to anti-Jewish attacks and rhetoric, but she also figures to be heavily involved in outreach, too.
“I expect there will be some reactive things when hate rears its ugly head,” said Rosenthal, who started work Nov. 23 as the State Department’s new special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism. “But I see some of this as proactive — being an ambassador and educator to organizations, to activists, to people in various parts of the world, on the importance of viewing anti-Semitism as a human rights issue.”
Following a stint in the Department of Health and Human Services during the Clinton administration, Rosenthal served from 2000 to 2005 as executive director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, an umbrella group of the major synagogue movements, national organizations and local Jewish communities across North America.
Most recently she was the vice president for community relations for the not-for-profit WPS Health Insurance Co. in Wisconsin.
Rosenthal, 58, a former rabbinical student, is the daughter of a rabbi who was the only member of his family to survive the Holocaust.
Conservative bloggers have criticized the nomination, noting that Rosenthal served on the advisory board of J Street.
Critics also point to an opinion piece that she wrote in the New York Jewish Week in which she asserted that pro-Israel events were being “dominated by narrow, ultra-conservative views of what it means to be pro-Israel.”
Conservative bloggers also noted that Abraham Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, issued an open letter criticizing Rosenthal’s claims.
Foxman could not be reached for comment, but the ADL did issue a statement quoting Foxman as saying that “this appointment signals the continued seriousness of America’s resolve to fight anti-Semitism.”
Rosenthal said that she has served as a member of J Street’s advisory council because “there’s genuine concern about how we proceed in the Middle East and I happen to believe that the status quo is unacceptable.”
She believes that some of the controversy over J Street can be attributed to generational issues.
“If the older generation doesn’t look to the younger generation for ideas and support,” she said, “we’re going to be isolated and so will Israel.”
Rosenthal said the Middle East will be one of the areas with which she’ll be dealing in her new job.
“Some of the criticism Israel sees and its isolation in the United Nations clearly comes from a place of anti-Semitism, but not all of it does,” she said. “We need to call out anti-Semitism when it’s there.”
Rosenthal said she also is concerned about the increase in Holocaust denial around the world, which she called “despicable,” adding, “Anyone who denies the Holocaust happened must be confronted immediately.”
Rosenthal said she didn’t seek the anti-Semitism position — she actually was advocating for someone else in the role — when Obama administration official Michael Posner suggested she might be the right person for the job.
Rosenthal’s predecessor in the anti-Semitism post was Gregg Rickman. He said he hopes she will pay particular attention to venues such as the U.N. Human Rights Council, which he said is dedicated to solely going after Israel, and Arab countries, where bias against Jews is often cloaked in clever language.
Rabbi Steve Gutow, who succeeded Rosenthal at the helm of JCPA and has known her since the early 1990s, said he thinks Rosenthal is “ideal for this position” because not only is she a committed Jew, but she has a talent for “seeing under the surface” and a “disarming way about her.”