As the nation celebrates 250 years of American history, the J250 Initiative was formally launched mid-July in Washington, D.C., at the America’s 250th Birthday Shabbat Dinner with the goal of taking a more proactive approach to fighting antisemitism.

The Shabbat dinner was co-hosted by Ambassador Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun, special envoy for monitoring and combating antisemitism, Undersecretary of State for Economic Affairs Jacob Hellberg and the Combat Antisemitism Movement.

“The J250 Initiative is dedicated to sharing foundational stories of Jewish American heroism, sacrifice, innovation and leadership over these past 250 years. Not as a history lesson, but as an integral part of the story of America,” said Arie Lipnick, co-founder and chair of the U.S. advisory board for the Combat Antisemitism Movement, in his remarks.

The initiative includes a social media campaign, a new Jewish American heritage curriculum for teachers and a nationwide contest for students to be awarded scholarships.

“We wanted to do something that reflected the Jewish contributions to America as we celebrate America,” Lipnick told Washington Jewish Week. “It’s been very much a labor of love … being able to go and learn things about the Jewish American experience that I had never known. [Learning] names from our shared history that I’d never known has been fantastically gratifying.”

The core mission of J250 is to tell the stories of American Jews who contributed to the founding and development of America, including notable figures such as Haym Salomon, a Philadelphian and major financier of the American Revolution.

“What we’re doing here with J250 is shining a light on the real contribution that Jewish Americans had to creating the country,” Aaron Keyak, former deputy special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism at the U.S. Department of State, said. “You’ll see from the people we feature that some of them fought for our military. Some of them were athletes, artists, inventors.”

Of those featured among the 250 names of Jewish Americans, many were locals to the Greater Washington area, like Jewish Supreme Court justices Louis Brandeis and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

“The Hillel House in Annapolis is the Uriah Levy Hillel, but I don’t think that most people, who aren’t attendees of the Naval Academy, ever come across that name,” added Keyak.

J250 highlights that Levy was known for purchasing and restoring Monticello in the 1830s and commissioned the statue of Thomas Jefferson that now stands in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda.

“I think Jewish people today, whether it’s in the online space or seeking out information about Jewish life and the Jewish history, get fed so much hatred,” Keyak said. “Right now on social media, you will proactively get fed antisemitic content when it’s the last thing you’re looking for, and so we’re hoping with this project to [provide] a bright moment of their day and telling the truly positive and essential story of the history and notable figures of Jews in America.”

For Keyak and Lipnick, Jewish American history is American history.

“They are one and the same,” Lipnick said. “You cannot separate the Jewish contribution from the American story … I think that’s the ultimate tale of what J250 is.”

For educators, J250 offers a free curriculum on national Jewish American heritage produced by The Tikvah Fund and Combat Antisemitism Movement.

“With any luck, our goal is, some years from now, there’ll be 2,500 or 25,000 names in our library,” Lipnick added. “But for this year, the hardest part is just choosing which are the first 250 that we feature.”

They explained that the initiative is about “pro-Semitism,” a term introduced by Kaploun at the America’s 250th Birthday Shabbat Dinner.

“We were just talking earlier about [Red Auerbach],” said Keyak

“I don’t think that most Celtics fans, or certainly Jewish Celtic fans or basketball fans, necessarily put two and two together and realized that Red Auerbach was Jewish,” Lipnick added. “Being able to tell his story to basketball fans … of connecting that thing that people love with this little bit of Jewish American history, I think engenders tremendous pride.”

Lipnick said his main goal is to engage with the J250 content and walk away “feeling that sense of Jewish pride of what we’ve contributed, what our community has contributed to America over the centuries.”

mresnicow@midatlanticmedia.com