The Senate Special Committee on Aging will hold a hearing on Wednesday about antisemitism targeting older Americans and how to best support them, the latest in a series of Senate hearings this year on antisemitism.

Capitol Hill’s inquiries into antisemitism since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks and the ensuing war in Gaza have focused primarily on antisemitism targeting younger Jews on college campuses. Wednesday’s hearing marks a new foray into an area largely unexplored by Congress.

Witnesses at the hearing will include Holocaust survivor David Schaecter, the founder of the Holocaust Memorial Miami Beach; Rabbi Mark Rosenberg, a Florida law enforcement chaplain and director of Chesed Shel Emes Florida; American Jewish Committee CEO Ted Deutch; and Rebecca Federman, senior director of the security desk for the Community Security Initiative.

The committee is led by Sens. Rick Scott (R-FL) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY).

In excerpts from his opening remarks shared with Jewish Insider, Scott emphasized that the hearing is particularly timely given that Passover recently ended and that Jewish American Heritage Month will begin later this week.

“The recent surge in antisemitic incidents, including harassment, violence, and vandalism, has become an alarming trend, especially impacting elderly Jewish Americans, including Holocaust survivors,” Scott is set to say. “In my home state of Florida, we have a large population of both seniors and Jewish individuals so this is deeply important to me.”

He is set to emphasize that older Jewish Americans nearly universally see antisemitism as a problem, and many have avoided publicly identifying as Jewish out of fear of discrimination. Scott will also argue that facing antisemitism or the fear of it prevents seniors from achieving basic benchmarks of well-being.

“The aging population is acutely aware of these fears because like Mr. Schaecter, they experienced antisemitic hate and violence earlier in life and assumed that ‘Never Again’ would hold true,” Gillibrand is set to say in her own opening remarks. “Now, that same population is highly susceptible to antisemitic violence.”

She’ll note that Schaecter has told his story of surviving the Holocaust many times, but now is forced to “see the same patterns of antisemitism reach unprecedented levels 85 years later.” And she’ll highlight that the majority of those killed in the 2018 Pittsburgh Tree of Life synagogue massacre were older congregants who were physically unable to escape.

Gillibrand will express support for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program, as well as legislation to promote education and prosecute hate crimes. She’ll also argue that the Trump administration’s moves to “strip universities of medical research funding … [do] nothing to keep students safe.”

Deutch is expected to highlight statistics showing that older Jewish Americans, including Holocaust survivors, are concerned about themselves and their loved ones facing antisemitism, according to a source familiar with his testimony. He’ll frame antisemitism as a threat to American democracy and a problem on both the far-left and far-right.

Deutch will call for action including passing the Antisemitism Awareness Act, the Protecting Students on Campus Act and the HEAL Act, and codifying May as Jewish American Heritage Month.

He’ll also urge Congress to work to un-freeze Nonprofit Security Grant Funding and provide $500 million for the program in 2026, increase resources for the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights and work with the administration to appoint a national coordinator for antisemitism.