American President Joe Biden has written to the American Jewish community to announce a national strategy to combat rising antisemitism and the need for Holocaust education.

In an op-ed for CNN published on Wednesday, Biden wrote: “As Jews read from the Haggadah about how evil in every generation has tried to destroy them, antisemitism is rising to record levels today,

“These acts are unconscionable and despicable. They carry in them terrifying echoes of the worst chapters in human history. And they’re not only a strike against Jews, they’re also a threat to other minority communities and a strain on the soul of our nation.”

A recent report by the US antisemitism watchdog Anti-Defamation League found that more than half of religious hate crimes in the country are perpetrated against Jews.

Biden went on to assure the American Jewish community that he is aware of the “fear, hurt and concern” afflicting them, and that his decision to run for president was sparked by the Charlottesville neo-Nazi marches of 2017.

“Rest assured that I am committed to the safety of the Jewish people,

“I stand with you. America stands with you. Under my presidency, we continue to condemn antisemitism at every turn. Failure to call out hate is complicity. Silence is complicity. And we will not be silent,” Biden wrote.

Biden then explained that his own father had instilled in him the importance of Holocaust education, a practice he continued with his own children during a trip to Dachau concentration camp.

He also announced the first-ever national strategy to counter antisemitism, which will “outline comprehensive actions the federal government will undertake, and that reflects input from over a thousand Jewish community stakeholders, faith and civil rights leaders, state and local officials and more.”

President Biden will be travelling to the United Kingdom and Ireland next week, the White House announced Wednesday morning. During the trip he will “deliver an address to celebrate the deep, historic ties that link our countries and people,” the White House said in a statement.

He will also visit Northern Ireland to mark the upcoming Good Friday Agreement, which the US helped broker 25 years ago. The last US president to visit Belfast was Barack Obama in 2013.