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\"I want to make sure in this country we have a positive dialogue going on about the different religions, the different races, the different lifestyles that we have,\" she said.

Anti-Semitic threats and acts had been on a decline in the U.S. until three or four years ago, according to John Cohen, a former acting undersecretary at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and current ABC News contributor.

Of the 1,749 victims of anti-religious hate crimes in 2017, 58.1 percent were victims of crimes motivated by the perpetrators' anti-Jewish bias, according to statistics from the FBI.

An open and welcoming Seder initiative couldn't be more fitting as a way to honor the woman who was just as meticulous a host as she was a researcher, said Marnie Fienberg.

\"If you were coming to her home [Joyce] would do anything to make you feel completely and utterly comfortable,\" Marnie Fienberg said. \"That didn't matter if it was an allergy you had, or if you had a religious restriction, or if you were coming from another culture... she would research it, make sure she was making you comfortable...and she made it all look effortless, even though she would spend hours and hours and hours prepping.\"

After Passover ends, Marnie Fienberg said she plans to invest her time in other grassroots initiatives.

\"We just have such a positive response. And I think there's a lot of energy out here and people want to put that positive dialogue out into the discussion, and I want to help facilitate that,\" she said. \"So this is, I hope, just the beginning.\"

As for Fienberg's Seder this weekend, she said, \"Joyce's presence will absolutely be with us.\"

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