Hearing: Confronting the Rise in Anti-Semitism Domestic Terrorism
House of Representatives
Committee on Homeland Security
Subcommittee on Intelligence and Counterterrorism
Washington, D.C.
January 15, 2020
Few issues have generated as much attention or distress in the contemporary Jewish world as the rise of anti-Semitism. Tragically, two decades after the outbreak of the second Intifada in the Middle East, evidence of rising or sustained levels of anti-Semitism continues to manifest itself here in the United States and around the globe. Devastating attacks against Jewish targets in Pittsburgh, Poway, Jersey City, Monsey, and Brooklyn have illustrated the problem, while anti-Semitism on university campuses has spiked in recent years. A recent report issued by California State University, San Bernardino, shows that anti-Semitic hate crimes in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago — the nation’s three largest cities — reached an 18-year peak last year.
While much has been done to fight anti-Semitism in the past decade or more, much work remains. The need for practical and effective strategies to combat and defeat this pathology is still crucial. To this end, B’nai B’rith has called for the appointment of a special coordinator on anti-Semitism in the United States, to be situated at the Department of Justice. The tragedies in Pittsburgh and Poway and elsewhere necessitate increased attention by the U.S. government. Such an official at the Justice Department could coordinate cross-agency efforts to tackle anti-Semitism, working with officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security, for example. This position would complement the work of Elan Carr, the State Department’s Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism, whose mandate covers manifestations of anti-Semitism outside the United States and who does outstanding work in spotlighting the problem around the globe.
Congress should pass the Combating BDS Act, which would allow state and local governments to penalize entities that engage in boycott, divestment, and sanctions activity targeting Israel, and the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act, which would provide the Department of Education with important definitional assistance in determining whether federal anti-discrimination laws have been violated in educational programs and activities. This will certainly ease the plight of Jewish students who are currently experiencing anti-Semitic harassment on campus.
We further call for Congress to pass the National Opposition to Hate, Assault, and Threats to Equality (NO HATE) Act. This bill incentivizes and encourages state and local law enforcement agencies to more comprehensively collect and report credible, reliable hate crimes data to the FBI. It would strengthen the hate crimes reporting provision of the Hate Crimes Statistics Act and the implementation of the Mathew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which in 2009 significantly expanded the role that the federal government can play in the investigation and prosecution of hate crimes.
Also crucial is H.R. 3106, the Domestic Terrorism DATA Act, which would authorize the appropriation of $2 million annually over the 2020-2026 period for the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice to prepare annual reports on domestic and international terrorism. The bill also would require the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to prepare an annual audit of those reports.
Finally, we urge passage of the “Never Again” Education Act, which would grant money raised through donations to American schools as part of the Holocaust Education Assistance Program. Holocaust education is vital to countering the growing threat of Holocaust denial and distortion and to conveying the lessons about hatred that the Holocaust provides for all people.
Whether it occurs in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, or Warsaw, Poland, anti-Semitism must be confronted aggressively. The responsibility to do so falls squarely on all of us, together with our allies and all people of conscience. Just as the very existence of the Jewish people and the Jewish state is a product of hope and determination, we must continue to apply these qualities to the challenge at hand. Only then may we realize the vision that President George Washington articulated in his 1790 letter to the Jewish community of Newport, Rhode Island: “May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants — while everyone shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.”