Jason MiYares rally in Virginia Beach, United States, on November 3, 2025. Photo: Zach D Roberts via Reuters Connect.

Former Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares (R) on Wednesday proposed a nationwide blueprint for combatting antisemitism, based on the multi-point plan Commonwealth lawmakers approved during the Glenn Youngkin administration (2022-2026). Miyares unveiled the plan during a “special briefing” with the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), stressing that the fight against antisemitism is a fight for civilization.

“You can’t be neutral or silent,” Miyares told CAM officials and others in attendance. “This is one of the defining moments of our time. Every civilization that has ever embraced antisemitism falters and fails — it is a sign of a rot. And if you don’t stamp it out, it would affect your entire society.”

CAM president of US affairs Alyza Lewin praised Miyares’ commitment to Jewish safety. “We’re asking to be protected when we’re targeted on the basis of our shared history and heritage rooted in the Land of Israel,” she told him. “When Jews are targeted by people who are hostile to the very notion that we are a people indigenous to Judea, that has to be understood as antisemitism.”

As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Virginia’s legislature approved HB 1606 in May 2023, adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition at the recommendation of a state commission Youngkin created to study antisemitism. The commission found 411 antisemitic incidents in Virginia in 2021 — a 71 percent jump from the prior year — though no antisemitic assaults since 2018, and cited the 2017 Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally, which killed counter-protester Heather Heyer, as the most notable prior incident. More recently, Fairfax County’s Nysmith School for the Gifted agreed to pay $100,000 to settle a lawsuit alleging it expelled three Jewish students for reporting antisemitism.

Beyond IHRA adoption, Virginia established an antisemitism task force, adopted new history-curriculum standards on the Holocaust and Nazism, and declared May Jewish Heritage Month. A separate bill barring public universities from boycotting Israel, SB 1375, did not pass.

Virginia acted early; many states did not. As antisemitic incidents surged nationally after Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre, some states hesitated to link rising anti-Zionism to antisemitism even as the Anti-Defamation League recorded triple-digit spikes — and both parties eventually turned the issue into a political football.

Earlier this month, CAM reported that 57 percent of Jews surveyed said they hide indicators of their identity to avoid becoming hate-crime targets, with 38 percent concealing identifying items, 32 percent avoiding related social media posts, and 23 percent skipping Jewish worship or cultural events out of fear.

“These findings are a stark reminder that antisemitism is a lived daily reality for Jewish Americans,” Lewin said. “The data is clear. The mandate is clear. It’s time to adopt the IHRA definition and get to work protecting the ability of Jews in America to openly, proudly and safely embrace their Jewish shared ancestry, history and heritage.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.