U.S. State Department building, Washington, D.C. Image by Wikipedia Commons

WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Trump is set to name a Los Angeles prosecutor to be the State Department’s envoy for anti-Semitism, filling a post that sat empty for two years despite protests from lawmakers and Jewish groups.

Elan Carr, 50, is a U.S. Army veteran who served in Iraq and was national president of the Jewish fraternity Alpha Epsilon Pi. Trump will name Carr on Tuesday.

“We eagerly look forward to working with Carr, as his office combats rising anti-Semitism, generated from the far right, the far left, and Islamist extremists, and abetted by the ubiquitous nature of social media,” David Harris, the American Jewish Committee CEO, said in a statement.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

Carr is immediately plunging into his work, heading this week to a conference on anti-Semitism in Bratislava organized by Slovakia, which currently holds the chair of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and then a European Union conference on anti-Semitism in Brussels. He has met or planned meetings with predecessors from both Republican and Democratic administrations.

Multiple letters from Jewish groups and a bipartisan array of Congress members had urged Trump to fill the post.

Trump’s failure until now to name an envoy has been exacerbated by concerns in the Jewish community that the president has equivocated in condemning white supremacists who have endorsed and praised him, and has cultivated relationships with authoritarians who have flirted with the far right, particularly in Hungary. The president’s defenders point to his support of Israel and his scrapping of an Iran nuclear deal reviled by Israel and many Jewish leaders.

The U.S. House of Representatives last month overwhelmingly approved a bill elevating the position to ambassador level. A 2004 law established the monitor’s post.

Carr was president of the fraternity from 2012 to 2014. He was a member while attending the University of California, Berkeley, and Northwestern.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$90 $180

$360

Other amount