Doug Emhoff had a job to do, but first he had to get himself together.

Four days earlier, on the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah, Hamas militants had launched a brutal surprise attack on Israel, killing more than 1,400 people. Vice President Kamala Harris and her boss, President Biden, had been fully briefed on the attacks the next morning, and she had called Israeli President Isaac Herzog to express her condolences. Later that week, she told reporters she was “completely outraged” by the “extreme acts of terror”.

But Emhoff, Harris’ husband and the first Jewish wife of a president or vice president, played a special role:

he recalled saying in an interview with The Times this week. or simply: told The Times in an interview this week?

For more than a year, Emhoff led the Biden administration’s efforts to combat anti-Semitism. The work was not always easy last year. He represented the United States during a visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau, but never before had he been called upon to reassure Jewish Americans after the hundreds of murders of their co-religionists.

After the Hamas attack, the White House had hastily transformed a previously scheduled roundtable that Emhoff had planned to attend with Jewish leaders into a more high-profile event. Biden would speak; national security adviser Jake Sullivan was expected to be there. Emhoff, who, like most Jewish and Palestinian Americans, was dealing with what he called “very raw” feelings, should try to comfort others.

As Biden and Emhoff waited to enter the room where they would address Jewish leaders gathered for the roundtable, the president pulled the second gentleman aside, held his hands and looked him in the eyes.

“How are you how are you?” Biden asked Emhoff.

“I just got ahold of it,” Emhoff recalls

If we have to, we can say: told The Times in a later interview

, his eyes misty. “And then I had to go out and talk.

And so you saw my raw emotion.

“

In his first public comments since 7 attacks last October 1,

an emotional Emhoff spoke of his “deep, deep-rooted bond with Israel and its people.”

“We witnessed a mass murder of innocent civilians. It was a terrorist attack,” he told the audience

as he pounded his fist on the podium lectern he stood behind. Biden stood next to Emhoff with his hands in his pockets and listened.

“And there is never any justification for terrorism. There are no two sides to this issue,” Emhoff added.

During his speech, Biden noted that he could “see the pain in some of your faces” as he entered the room.

He turned his gaze to Sheila Katz, director of the National Council of Jewish Women, who was crying. “

you

OK

“Child?” he asked.

“Well, your fear of family and friends in Israel. You worry that children at school are becoming targets in their daily lives. You are hurt by downplaying Hamas atrocities and blaming Israel. This is unconscionable,” Biden said.

Demonstrations over the conflict between Israel and Hamas have roiled cities and university campuses. Several groups of demonstrators have gathered to express solidarity with Israel or Israelis, to support Palestinian civilians and to protest Israel’s military campaign.

But it is wrong to go so far as to show support for a group like Hamas, Emhoff told The Times.

“In my personal opinion, it is wrong to speak out in favor of terrorism,” he said. ‘Hamas is a terrorist organization

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terrorist atrocities committed against innocent people. And that cannot be supported.”

In the days since Oct. After seven attacks, Israel has besieged the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip

After a series of airstrikes and cutting off the area’s access to water, power and basic services, a campaign that aid groups have warned is creating a humanitarian crisis. Israeli forces began preparing for a possible ground invasion of Gaza

have air raids

already killed about 3,500 Palestinians

the Gaza Ministry of Health said.

In the US, details of Hamas’s atrocities and harrowing images of the bloody scenes they left behind in southern Israel have flooded social media, television screens and newspapers. Overwhelmed hospitals and Palestinians

S

Bodies strewn across the rubble in Gaza after Israeli airstrikes have also recurred.

The onslaught of horrific events and images has left some Jewish and Palestinian Americans despairing of any hope for peace in the region.

Grief has also weighed on Emhoff over the past ten days. “It’s just very raw for me as a Jew and as someone who has really put myself out there,” he said.

But hopelessness did not overwhelm him. Biden and Harris have continued to urge him to speak out against bigotry and violence “because it’s important,” he said. “Despite how painful this is… the outrage and the sheer pain and shock of what is happening, I still continue to do what I do, focusing on the fight against hatred, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.”

Federal authorities have increased security in cities across the country over concerns that the war could lead to anti-Semitic or Islamophobic violence. On Saturday, a week after the Simchat Torah attacks, a Chicago man was arrested

during the fatal stabbing or because of an alleged stabbing

a 6-year-old Palestinian Muslim boy

till death

in what authorities have called a hate crime.

The boy Wadea Al-Fayoume

was stabbed 26 times and his mother was injured.

Maybe we don’t need all this?’ Doug and I join the family of Wadea Al-Fayoume, a six-year-old Palestinian-American Muslim child who was stabbed to death on Saturday. We also pray for the recovery of “Wadea’s mother, Hanaan Shahin, was stabbed 12 times in the same attack,” Harris said in a statement Monday. “Hate has no place in America. We unequivocally condemn hatred and Islamophobia and stand with the Palestinian, Arab and Muslim American communities.”

“It’s sick. I’m sick of it,” Emhoff said of the

kill

.

To survive this moment and ensure hate does not further divide the country, Americans must come together, Emhoff said.

“The most important thing is to bring groups together so that we can fight against hatred together,” he said. “No one can fight alone, and that’s something [Harris] taught me. …There’s nothing worse than feeling alone.”