Many members of the Jewish community are growing increasingly concerned about the rise in anti-Semitic threats, harassment and violence in Kentucky and across the nation.

Governor Andy Beshear established a task force by executive order near the end of last year to come up with some solutions.

More than a dozen leaders from across the state will appointed to the board, including current and former elected officials.

Former state Treasurer Jonathan Miller was the first Jewish Kentuckian ever elected to statewide office back in 1999.

He's on the anti-Semitism task force and talked to me Friday about the work the group is doing.

Jonathan Miller, thank you so much for your time.

We appreciate it.

Great to be here.

Talk to us about the anti-Semitism task force.

This was put together through executive order by Governor Andy Beshear last year.

You've had your first meeting.

What is the purpose and mission of the group?

This is an awfully difficult time to be Jewish here in Kentucky and across the country.

anti-Semitism has grown over the last few years pretty significantly, but particularly since the terrorist actions that Hamas took against Israel on October 7th, We've seen continuing negative things in the in the public eye.

And it's a tough time to be on social media.

It's a tough time to be in your congregation and worried about security.

And so Governor Andy Beshear really is taking a national leadership role here, putting together our task force and our first meeting.

We looked at the issue, the big issues, and helped to kind of figure out what are agendas going to be in the months ahead.

Yeah.

What do we know about the growth of anti-Semitism in Kentucky?

What does it look like?

A lot of it is online.

A lot of it is what we're seeing on TikTok and in these other social media contexts.

We've seen some on campus, not not to the degree we see it in kind of the Ivy League schools.

But a lot of Jewish students are concerned We are the worst of all.

My my daughter was teaching Sunday school here in Lexington a few weeks ago when the bomb threat was emailed in and she had to get her kids out of class.

And, you know, it gets it proved to be nothing.

But still, this is quite a scary time.

And so it's really an important thing that governor is doing to focus on this.

But but focus on solutions and focus on how we can address this in a holistic way.

It's not a partizan issue, is it?

No, this is very bipartisan.

We I've spoken with a number of members of the legislature, Republicans and Democrats.

There is a shared desire to do something here.

And where it really comes down to a lot of it is education, a lot of ignorance.

You know, most areas outside of Lexington and Louisville, there aren't very many Jewish people, maybe some counties don't have any at all.

And so, so much of it is trying to get education into the school system, what the Holocaust was, how how, how, how horrible it was.

And that it's not a myth that sometimes you see on the Internet and also other stereotypes about Jewish people that continued to circulate.

And I think when we start with with our kids, that's when we can really help build the basis for more understanding and interfaith dialog.

Do you view some of the actions of the Kentucky General Assembly when it comes to conversations about critical race theory and what should be taught when it comes to race and ethnicity and religion and schools?

Do you think that could somehow fuel some of this anti-Semitism?

Do you blame that in some way?

I don't.

You know, the legislature has been really good on this front.

They.

2018, the General Assembly passed legislation to mandate that Holocaust education be provided in the school systems.

There is a pro-Israel caucus that meets pretty regularly in the legislature that's very concerned about these issues.

So I really do see us working together closely with the legislature, with Democrats, Republicans, independents.

I think we all have a shared mission.

The number of anti-Semites in this state is very small.

Just the problem is it becomes loud and gets amplified on social media.

And I think together working across faiths, working across party lines, we can really address this.

And is it an interfaith operation as well?

Do you have Christian faith and others who are also involved?

Yes.

So the governor has that.

The task force is majority Jewish folks representing each section of each major organization in the Jewish community.

But we do have a representative from the Muslim community.

We have a few faith leaders from the Christian community.

And it's it's really important to the governor.

It is to me that we don't approach this in a in a in a negative, accusatory way.

But bringing people together to have understanding.

You know, a lot of anti-Semitic Semitic things that are being said or said unknowingly.

There is and they aren't said with hate in the heart for Jews, but things can be misconstrued and you see something on online and you repeat it and you don't realize what what harm you're doing and how hurtful you're being.

So that's why education is really so important.