The Associated launched an initiative to combat antisemitism on July 17 in the wake of rising antisemitism that is impacting every area of Jewish life, the organization said in a press release.
The initiative, branded as The Associated’s Center for Countering Antisemitism and Hate, has four focus areas for its work: education, security, coalition building and countering misinformation.
The center will be under the care of newly hired executive director Rebecca Krasner, who comes to Baltimore after nearly three years as the director of education at the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia.
“Baltimore has been somewhat fortunate to not be a hot spot of antisemitism in terms of violence or particularly nasty rhetoric, but in no way are we immune from the American moment. We need to be proactive in keeping Baltimore separated from the worst of these developments,” said Andrew Cushnir, the president and CEO of The Associated.
The Associated said the center’s work will include bolstering educational efforts in schools and on college campuses; expanding security and cybersecurity measures; engaging partners across faith, racial and ethnic communities to build coalitions of allies; giving community members tools to combat antisemitism; and building a “comprehensive digital platform” to address misinformation and harmful stereotypes.
In schools, the center will create learning experiences focused on the Holocaust, antisemitism and more, while also providing teachers around Baltimore with the tools to teach about these topics.
Cushnir said that the Baltimore Jewish Council and others have been instrumental in the area of education and working toward maintaining a good representation of Jewish life in educational settings. But he added that there is still more work to be done to continue improving an understanding of the Jewish community through education.
“We will work with administrators and teachers to create offerings that enable them to create content that represents us factually and that works for them within their environments,” Cushnir said.
Another key concern has been security, and Cushnir said that the BJC has a full-time security person and has been coordinating with local authorities to ensure the best security protections they can offer.
He added that The Associated spent several million dollars as they moved into their new headquarters in Park Heights to provide a secure environment with state-of-the-art security measures.
With these wide-reaching policy aims across the Baltimore community, The Associated is bringing in Krasner and her several years of leadership experience to be at the helm of the center as it begins its work.
This new role will be somewhat in line with Krasner’s previous work at the Weitzman, where an increasing responsibility over the past few years was educating the public about the Jewish people and using that education to try to combat antisemitism.
“Through that work, I just became aware of how great the need is, be it responding to antisemitic incidents, but even more than that, really taking a step back and trying to think strategically about how we can be telling the Jewish story in a new way for students in the K-12 space,” Krasner said.
Krasner said she specializes in telling the Jewish story and incorporating Jewish history into the greater global narrative. One part of her work in Philadelphia was creating curriculum for public and private school teachers.
Now, Krasner will have the opportunity to make an impact in the Baltimore community. She specifically addressed K-12 education as a major area where the center can have an impact on antisemitism.
She said that most students will say they learn about Judaism and Jewish people primarily from the classroom, and that most antisemitism seen in schools is from a place of ignorance, not malice.
“I really believe the more we can tell and retell the Jewish story, we just have a huge opportunity to counter misinformation, to counter tropes, to counter ideas that enter students’ minds,” Krasner said.
To support the work of the center, The Associated is looking to achieve a fundraising goal of $5 million over three years.
Cushnir said that in his 30 years of working in the Federation system, there has been a big priority shift toward combatting antisemitism from when he started. But with the ADL reporting in January 2025 that 46% of the world’s adult population “harbors deeply entrenched antisemitic attitudes,” and after multiple violent attacks in recent months, fighting antisemitism has become a core priority.
“If fear and violence make it so we can’t live the Jewish lives we want to live, we’re at a dead end in our community, and we cannot tolerate that,” Cushnir said.
