Schumer ‘trying to figure out the best path forward’ on Antisemitism Awareness Act
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) told Jewish Insider on Wednesday that “[w]e’re trying to figure out the best path forward” on the Antisemitism Awareness Act, after a House lawmaker said the Senate leader had committed to holding a vote.
But Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) said he’d spoken to Schumer recently and Schumer had committed to holding a vote on the bill before the end of the year. Asked about that conversation in a brief interview with JI, Schumer didn’t provide details on his plans or current discussions or directly address his reported commitment to Gottheimer.
Rep. Jake Auchincloss talks Netanyahu, Bowman, Biden and antisemitism
Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA), closing out his second term on Capitol Hill, has emerged as a prominent, pragmatic voice among younger members of the Democratic caucus, and is seen as a potential leader on key issues.
Jewish Insider’s Editor-in-Chief Josh Kraushaar and senior congressional correspondent Marc Rod sat down with Auchincloss, who is Jewish, for nearly an hour in his Capitol Hill office last week to discuss the state of the Democratic Party, the situation in the Middle East, antisemitism, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s upcoming address to Congress — and more.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Jewish Insider: What [lessons] do you read from that pretty decisive victory from George Latimer [over Rep. Jamaal Bowman] in New York?
Auchincloss: I would caution any pundit from extrapolating from that race to broader dynamics. There was a lot going in there that is idiosyncratic to that district. There is Jamaal’s break with the president on [the] bipartisan infrastructure [bill]. There’s obviously some of his own unforced errors in regards to both constituent communications and engagement, and also actions here on the Hill. It’s got a big Jewish community there, very engaged Jewish community. You’ve got Oct. 7 as a catalyzing agent, a challenger who is already very well-vested in the community. I know it’s an attractive proposition to take a single primary with — how many people voted, like 30,000? — I would caution against extrapolation.
JI: It seems like rock-solid support for Israel is at a low point in the Democratic Party, at least in [the time you’ve been on the Hill]. Is it possible to get back, in the Democratic Party, to the pre-Oct. 7 point and what would have to happen to make that happen?
JA: Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, the three most prominent Democrats on Capitol Hill, in Washington — strongly pro-Israel. The Democratic Party remains a pro-Israel party.
We have an under-30 problem, for sure. So I worry more about Congress 20 years from now than I do Congress today — you saw the vote tally for Israel … But I do worry about the next generation, and that is going to require addressing not just Gaza, but also the West Bank. And in some ways, the West Bank is going to be equally as important as Gaza, because much of Netanyahu’s strategy over the last decade was about destabilizing both … The Israelis need to stop with expansion of settlement activity … In terms of antisemitism, as I’ve said before, the Democratic Party can’t have double standards on antisemitism, and we should look at the Labour Party in Great Britain as a warning.
JI:Is the [Democratic] party headed in that direction?
JA: No, the mainstream of the party is not. And yet, I will say that your values are communicated by the fights that you’re willing to pick … Just because the mainstream of the Democratic Party, I believe, solidly understands and opposes antisemitism, does not mean that that value gets communicated effectively if we do not condemn, name, shame antisemitic elements, and that includes what’s happening on college campuses.
JI: Rashida Tlaib spoke at a conference where there was promotion of terrorism, PFLP affiliates in Michigan. Very few Democrats — a couple spoke out — but very few wanted to comment, that we talked to. Do Democrats need to speak out when there are these episodes within the party?
JA: It’s unacceptable, yes. And I think we also, though, have to be cautious that we are not injecting oxygen in a way that takes a spark and makes it into a fire, right?… Some things we’re going to say, ‘Hey, this is best just marginalized by silence.’ But I think other things, like when individuals are claiming that allegations of rape or sexual violence after Oct. 7 are propaganda — that’s unacceptable, that needs to be said.
JI:What are you looking at and thinking about ahead of [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s] congressional speech? What are you hoping to hear from him? What are you afraid that [he’ll say]?
JA: What I’m hoping is that he’s going to tell us he’s going to call elections. That’s what I’m hoping for … What I want to hear is a concrete proposal for day-of governance to defeat Hamas. The president’s 10 points that he put forward a month ago, month and a half ago — [including bringing the] hostages home [and the] permanent defeat of Hamas — those two remain the objectives, and I think the prime minister needs to articulate how he does that and and not do hand-waving of ‘Military now, governance later.’ It’s got to be how we’re going to do military and governance intertwined.
JI:What is your sense of how [Netanyahu’s speech is] going to play on Capitol Hill, and could this hurt the cause of support for Israel, within your party especially?
JA: It’s up to how the prime minister addresses Congress. If it’s a repeat of 2015, yeah, it’s going to hurt. I’m attending out of respect for the U.S.-Israel relationship, which I think is critical … but if the prime minister criticizes Joe Biden directly, I’m walking out of that speech … and I would encourage Democrats broadly to make that our approach.
JI:Hamas has repeatedly turned down this [cease-fire] deal, has repeatedly shifted the goalposts … If there isn’t a deal that is achievable here, what does the path forward look like? Do you think that the administration should be supporting Israel continuing its military operations, at that point, until it feels that it’s done? Or do you think that there needs to be sort of a movement by Israel to unilaterally start winding things down at this point, regardless?
JA: I’m not sure it’s a binary like that. Actually, I would argue that they have to be synthesized. My criticism of Netanyahu has never been that he argues that military force is necessary in Israel. I have, to date, still not said that there should be a permanent cease-fire there, because I continue to believe that Israel needs to use military force to degrade Hamas’ capabilities, to control the security perimeter around Gaza, to put pressure on Hamas to negotiate, right? So I think all those things are true.
My criticism of Netanyahu has always been that he has not twinned that military pressure with a governance strategy. And people call it, oftentimes, the day-after approach. I actually reject that term because it implies a sequentiality that I don’t think exists. It is parallel. It is day-of. You’ve got to be attacking Hamas and, same day, in north, central, even south Gaza, empowering elements of — and it will be probably the Palestinian Authority — to provide security, economic development, infrastructure maintenance.
JI: Do you think Hamas can be, in the language of Netanyahu, defeated in Gaza?
JA: Yes, is the short answer. People like to say, ‘Oh, you can’t defeat an ideology,’ as though we should just all just throw up our hands and be like, ‘Yeah, you’re right. Hamas should just get to do whatever they want.’ No, we can. We can defeat Hamas. Does that mean that there is no human being in Gaza who subscribes to Islamist terrorism? No, of course, not … If you go back to the classic definition of a state as having a monopoly on the organized use of violence and depriving Hamas of the levers of statehood, of having a monopoly on the organized use of violence, 100% we can defeat Hamas. We will not defeat Hamas purely with [bullets] or [bombs]. We will defeat Hamas because there will be an alternative that the people of Gaza find more compelling.
Part of defeating them is also looking at the education system in Gaza, [which] I think is really critical. People are looking for this easy, knee-jerk bow tie: ‘Oh we’re going to recognize Palestinian statehood, be able to walk away and we’ve done it.’ I think it’s a lot harder. It’s incremental gains in security, infrastructure, economic development, education that just increase standards of living for Palestinians so that they are not being educated into or subscribe to a death cult’s ideology.
JI:This Saudi deal that’s being talked about, they’re apparently asking a lot of the U.S.: more advanced weapons, defense guarantees, domestic nuclear enrichment. Are those things that you’d be amenable to the U.S. providing, if it [helps achieve] regional normalization?
JA: I strongly support the Abraham Accords. I strongly support, obviously, Saudi recognition of Israel and Saudi entrance into the Abraham Accords. I am deeply skeptical of a defense guarantee [from] the United States for Saudi Arabia. I understand what Saudi Arabia gets out of that. I’m not totally sure [what] we get out of that, what Israel gets out of that … I would want to see, also, significant capital, both financial and political, from the Saudis for Gaza as well. The Arab states have done nothing for the Palestinian people for a century. It’s time for that to change, and that needs to be part of a deal.
JI: How are you looking at Qatar right now?
JA: A necessary evil. They’re the interlocutor, obviously, between us and Hamas. I’m not, obviously, in the conversations about the exact ways to calibrate pressure on Hamas’ political arm in Qatar; I agree that we should put more pressure on them, to the extent that we can, to accept the deal, the temporary cease-fire. I also understand that if you do it too much, and they end up in the Sahel [in Northern Africa], and we lose all contact with the political wing of Hamas, we don’t have an interlocutor. I’m not sure that serves the purposes of the hostages, either.
JI: The foreign funding from Qatar has been reported as sort of a leading driver for some of the problems of antisemitism on campus? Is there anything legislatively that can be done to address foreign interference or foreign money going into universities?
JA: I think that needs to be explored as part of the tax deal [in the] next Congress about tax treatment for universities that take significant amounts of or have significant connections to Islamist ideology.
JI: On the taxes issue — does the administration need to start really putting teeth into these investigations and start threatening or actually taking away tax-exempt status and federal funding from these schools?
JA: Obviously there’s a range of repercussions available as part of OCR investigations. Today, I couldn’t point to an example where I say, ‘Oh, the administration should have been tougher in this sense.’ And so I am reluctant to say that. I will say, as part of the tax deal, that needs to be part of the conversation … We benefit from immigration, we benefit from the fact that other countries want to invest in and send their students to our universities. I’m very liberal on this concept. We also have to recognize that in this there are a couple of bugs in that operating system, and one of them is that, in the same way that Saudi and Qatar are trying to launder their money through golf or through other outfits, they’re trying to do it through education as well, and we do have to be cognizant of that. The same way that I was a co-lead of the TikTok bill we can’t allow the next generation of Americans to be inculcated in a fundamentally anti-American ideology.
JI:You’ve got a lot of colleges and universities [near] your district … What do they need to be doing over the summer, proactively to prepare for [the fall semester] and to, you know, have better responses ready to go in the fall [to antisemitic activity]?
JA: At a high level, enforce their own rules and boundaries. And this was one of the reasons I voted against the Antisemitism Awareness Act. These colleges already have time, place and manner restrictions. They already have Title VI compliance rules that they just under-enforced or downright ignored. I talked about this with … a president of a prominent university who has done a good job. I was like, ‘What’s your secret?’ And he was like, ‘I just enforced what the rules are.’
JI: Your vote against the [Antisemitism Awareness Act] stood out — tell us a little bit about your thinking on that front?
Auchincloss: It opens a constitutional can of worms. It codifies cancel culture on campus. And I’m opposed to cancel culture. And it solves no problem … We don’t need to update congressional statute. We need these faculty and university leadership to enforce their own time, place and manner restrictions, and then we need to fund OCR at the Department of Education to prosecute universities that are failing…
I saw the potential downside of it being misappropriated to chill speech. And you can see that happening. No other protected class has a single and solitary definition … I think that facts and context and evolving societal understanding should matter in this … What we need these universities to be is ‘small l’ liberal. The Jews have thrived in liberal, open, meritocratic environments. What we do not want to do is double down on, I think, is identitarian politics. I do not think that in the long run, that is going to serve the Jewish people.
JI: That loops into this debate that is happening in the Jewish community about [Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs], which is, do DEI programs need to be expanded to better include Jews, or should they be dismantled because they’ve been shown to have, it seems like, ingrained bias or failure to recognize the situation of Jewish people?
JA: I prefer the word pluralism, because it’s really what we’re talking about — at least how I interpret the intentions behind DEI. Pluralism is a very old American idea. If you read the 2018 Harvard statement on inclusion and belonging that [Harvard political science professor] Danielle Allen wrote — that version of I think she called it pluralism, but probably today would be called DEI — that version, to me, is conducive to a suitable learning environment.
JI: We saw in New York that the people who occupied Hamilton Hall [at Columbia University] were not charged, most of them at least, at the White House vandalizing statues — I don’t think any of them have been charged. Are you concerned about that?
JA: More broadly about property and violent crime being under-enforced — I’ve always been opposed to that. I disagreed with the decision by a previous Boston [district attorney] to blanket take 20 property crimes and say she proactively was not going to prosecute … I’m a law-and-order liberal. I believe that we should be prosecuting property and violent crime assertively, including this.
Schumer under mounting pressure to advance major antisemitism bill
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is facing mounting pressure from Jewish leaders and Democratic colleagues who have privately voiced frustrations with the continued delay in moving to advance a major bill aimed at addressing a recent surge in antisemitic activity on college campuses.
Schumer, who has been outspoken against rising antisemitism in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, had endorsed prior versions of the legislation, called the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which first passed the Senate in 2016 under unanimous consent.
But after an initial effort to unanimously fast-track the bill failed last month in the Senate, Schumer has since delayed for weeks in bringing the bill up for a floor vote, even as it is expected to pass comfortably with bipartisan support and has won backing from a large number of Jewish groups.
In a brief interview with Jewish Insider on Thursday afternoon, Schumer, who has rarely addressed the matter publicly, stressed that he is now “looking at every single option to try and get strong, bipartisan legislation passed,” but he did not share a timeline for approving the bill.
“The crusade against antisemitism is in my bones, has been for my whole life,” he said, describing “the goals and aspirations of” the bill as “so important in this fight and to the future.”
Still, the holdup has angered supporters of the bill who allege that Schumer — the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in the country — is now slow-walking a floor vote because he is fearful that it will highlight divisions within his caucus while garnering a larger share of Republican backers.
“He is avoiding this at all costs,” said a person familiar with the matter who spoke with JI on the condition of anonymity to address a sensitive topic. “The reason why he hates this is because Schumer knows there’s going to be 40 to 45 Republicans who are going to vote for this bill, but there’s only going to be 30 Democrats.”
The bill would enshrine a definition of antisemitism used by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance into federal law and direct the Department of Education to consider the definition — which, among other things, identifies some criticism of Israel as antisemitic — in evaluating complaints of anti-Jewish discrimination on college campuses. That policy has been in place since 2019 under an executive order signed by former President Donald Trump.
While the legislation passed the House early last month by a wide margin, it has also drawn opposition from members of both parties, including some progressive and right-wing critics who have raised varying objections to the bill on free speech grounds.
Despite some resistance to the bill in the Senate, however, two of the most vulnerable Democrats up for reelection in November — Sens. Bob Casey (D-PA) and Jacky Rosen (D-NV) — are each eager for Schumer to call a vote and are urging him to act, according to sources familiar with their outreach.
A Senate aide confirmed to JI on Tuesday that Casey, who reintroduced the legislation with Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) in April, is pushing Schumer to move forward.
“The horrific rise in reported incidents of antisemitism is a clarion call for Congress to step up and protect students on campuses across the nation,” Casey said in a statement shared with JI on Thursday. “The need for my Antisemitism Awareness Act has never been greater and I am working with Leader Schumer on all legislative options to pass it as quickly as possible.”
For her part, Rosen, a Jewish Democrat who is the lead sponsor of a separate antisemitism bill that also remains stalled in the Senate, has grown especially frustrated with Schumer’s delay as the summer congressional recess draws closer, said one well-placed source familiar with her thinking.
In a statement to JI, however, Rosen expressed confidence in Schumer’s approach to the bill, which she called “an important step in addressing rising campus antisemitism.”
“At a time when antisemitism has skyrocketed across the United States in the aftermath of the October 7 terrorist attack in Israel, particularly on college campuses, I’ve been working with Senator Schumer to advance the bipartisan Antisemitism Awareness Act,” she said, adding that the majority leader “is looking at every path forward to get this done.”
Meanwhile, several Jewish leaders who met with Schumer last month to lobby on behalf of the bill indicated in a follow-up letter sent to his office last Friday that their patience has been wearing thin.
In the letter, obtained by JI and written by top officials at a range of major Jewish and pro-Israel groups, the Jewish leaders requested an update from Schumer and “once again” exhorted him to greenlight a vote, emphasizing that in their initial meeting he had “committed to us that there would be movement on the bill within a short timeframe.”
Describing the legislation as “a high priority of the American Jewish community,” the Jewish leaders called on Schumer to move with alacrity before the fall semester begins on campuses, citing “a dramatic increase of antisemitic activity” on college campuses amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
“We must ensure that, when students arrive on campus in the fall, we have adequately equipped the agencies tasked with protecting their civil rights,” the signatories elaborated in their letter to Schumer. “The Antisemitism Awareness Act is a key piece of this effort. In light of this unfolding crisis, we urge you to bring the bill to the Senate floor prior to the beginning of the 2024-25 academic year.”
The letter was signed by William Daroff of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations; Ted Deutch of the American Jewish Committee; Eric Fingerhut of the Jewish Federations of North America; Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League; Howard Kohr of AIPAC; Eric Goldstein of UJA-Federation of New York; and Nathan Diament, executive director of public policy for the Orthodox Union.
A source familiar with the situation previously told JI that, during the meeting with Jewish leaders, Schumer had indicated that he is still trying to resolve objections to the bill, which is likely to be a difficult prospect given entrenched opposition from some lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who say the legislation limits free speech. The Jewish leaders urged Schumer to bring the bill to a vote.
In comments to JI on Thursday, representatives of some of the Jewish groups that met with Schumer reiterated their support for the bill. “We are eager for the AAA to be voted on by the Senate,” Diament said in a statement, using an acronym for the bill. “It passed the House by an overwhelming margin and we are confident the same will happen in the Senate when brought for a vote.”
Karen Paikin Barall, vice president of government relations at JFNA, echoed that view, calling the Antisemitism Awareness Act “a critical piece of legislation” and voicing “hope it will come to a vote in the Senate as soon as possible. We are confident that it will pass.”
The ADL has been “working closely with” Schumer and his team, said Dan Granot, the group’s director of government relations, “and as we have discussed multiple times, now is the time for Congress to step up and meet this moment of rising antisemitism.”
Julie Fishman Rayman, the managing director of policy and political affairs at the AJC, called Schumer “a committed ally of the American Jewish community” and said he “knows that it is in the best interest of the community to get a bill that defines and counters antisemitism passed by the Senate before the end of this congressional session.”
On Thursday, some Jewish leaders also came to his defense.
Sheila Katz, the CEO of the National Council of Jewish Women, who attended the meeting with Schumer last month, said in an interview with JI that “passing legislation to combat antisemitism is a top priority” for the Senate leader. “Once again,” she said, “he has mobilized to ensure critical legislation to combat antisemitism moves forward. He is doing this in a thoughtful and strategic way by actively working with multiple stakeholders and Jewish organizations.”
But while NCJW supports the IHRA definition as “an educational tool,” as the group states on its website, it does “not recommend this be codified into law or used to prohibit freedom of speech in any way.” Katz clarified to JI that NCJW “has been focused on advocating for” another bill that Schumer has co-sponsored called the Countering Antisemitism Act, which was introduced in April by Rosen and Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), but noted that “we do not oppose the AAA.”
Amy Spitalnick, the CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, said that Schumer’s “commitment to addressing the crisis of antisemitism is crystal clear.”
Her group, she told JI, is also working with the senator’s team on “a legislative path forward” for such bills as the Countering Antisemitism Act, which seeks to codify and expand on the Biden administration’s national strategy to combat antisemitism and is endorsed by a broad swath of the Jewish community.
The JCPA, however, has “not taken a position” on the Antisemitism Awareness Act, according to Spitalnick.
The White House declined to comment directly on the bill, noting instead that the Countering Antisemitism Act “is aligned with the administration’s national strategy to counter antisemitism in important ways.” President Joe Biden “welcomes congressional action in this fight,” Andrew Bates, a White House spokesperson, told JI on Thursday.
In a sign of brewing frustration with Schumer across the Jewish denominational spectrum, a sizable coalition of Orthodox rabbis issued a joint statement last week accusing the majority leader of “obstructing” a handful of bills concerning the Jewish community, including the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which now has 31 co-sponsors almost evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans.
With the bill continuing to languish in the upper chamber, some critics are skeptical of Schumer’s commitment to advancing what they see as urgently needed legislation to counter a rise in antisemitism that has riven college campuses in recent months.
The majority leader has given some notable floor remarks where he has condemned antisemitism, including a landmark speech last November in which he argued that anti-Israel animus “in the wake of Oct. 7 is all too often crossing into brazen and widespread antisemitism, the likes of which we haven’t seen for generations in this country.”
More recently, Schumer took to the Senate floor earlier this month to speak out against a widely denounced pro-Hamas demonstration at an exhibit in downtown Manhattan honoring the victims of the Nova music festival massacre.
But Schumer’s more cautious approach to legislation addressing antisemitism has recently drawn scrutiny, particularly as he has also faced backlash from some Jewish and pro-Israel groups over his sharply worded speech in March calling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu an obstacle to peace and advocating for new elections to replace the Israeli leader.
“By all accounts, the success or failure of the Antisemitism Awareness Act now depends almost entirely on the decision of one man: Majority Leader Schumer,” Kenneth Marcus, the founder and president of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, said in an email to JI this week.
Marcus, who relied on the IHRA definition while overseeing anti-Jewish discrimination cases as the head of the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights in the Trump administration, said that Schumer “need only call the bill to a vote, and it will probably pass.”
“The problem is that a roll call vote could expose fissures within both parties, with far greater problems among the Democrats,” he suggested.
Even as Schumer vowed to explore all available avenues to pass the bill, he emphasized in his comments to JI that “beating back antisemitism also involves public education and fervent voices to say things like I said in my own speech on antisemitism and so many times afterwards, as recently as this week.”
“As I continue to meet with other senators, Jewish groups and other stakeholders,” Schumer added, “my North Star is always going to be the Jewish values I hold and the history we as Jews have learned.”
Biden condemns violent campus protests, Oct. 7 denialism and defenders in Holocaust remembrance speech
In a forceful speech on Tuesday at the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony on Capitol Hill, President Joe Biden delivered strong remarks denouncing violent anti-Israel protests on college campuses, harassment and violence targeting the American Jewish community and ongoing efforts to deny, downplay or move past the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
The remarks, one of Biden’s clearest denunciations of antisemitism and Hamas in months, came amid surging anti-Israel protests on college campuses around the country and growing domestic and international pressure on Israel.
“I see your fear, your hurt and your pain, let me reassure you as your president you are not alone, you belong, you always have and you always will,” Biden said. “And my commitment to the safety of the Jewish people, the security of Israel, and its right to exist as an independent Jewish state is ironclad, even when we disagree.”
The president said that the right to hold strong beliefs about world events and to “debate, disagree, protest peacefully” is fundamental to America, but that there is “no place on any campus in America, any place in America for antisemitism, hate speech or threats of violence of any kind.”
Biden emphasized that attacks and destruction of property — which have happened on a number of campuses — are not protected speech and are illegal.
“We are not a lawless country, we are a civil society. We uphold the rule of law,” Biden said. “No one should have to hide or be afraid just to be themselves.”
He said that it’s incumbent on all Americans to “be those guardians, we must never rest, we must rise against hate, meet across the divide, see our common humanity,” and that attacks on any minority group are threats to all minority groups.
Biden also condemned those who have already moved past the Hamas attack on Israel, and the “too many people” who are “denying, downplaying, rationalizing, ignoring the horrors of the Holocaust and Oct. 7, including Hamas’ appalling use of sexual violence to torture and terrorize Jews.”
“Now, here we are, not 75 years later, but just seven and a half months later,” Biden said. “People are already forgetting that Hamas unleashed this terror. It was Hamas that brutalized Israelis, it was Hamas that took and that continues to hold hostages. I have not forgotten and neither have you. And we will not forget.”
He connected such rhetoric to the Holocaust, highlighting that the Holocaust began with smaller crimes in the face of “indifference” from the world.
“It’s absolutely despicable and it must stop,” Biden added, of the Oct. 7 denialism. “Silence and denial can hide much but it can erase nothing… it cannot be buried no matter how hard people try.”
Biden pledged that he is “working around the clock” and “will not rest” until all hostages held in Gaza are freed.
In connection with Biden’s speech, the administration announced on Tuesday a series of additional steps to combat antisemitism.
The Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights issued new guidance to every school district and college in the country that provides “examples of Antisemitic discrimination, as well as other forms of hate,” which could prompt civil rights investigations, according to a White House announcement.
Education officials told Jewish leaders last week the guidance is aimed at helping school leaders distinguish between protected free speech and antisemitic incidents.
The Department of Homeland Security will create a new “campus safety resources guide” to help schools access “financial, educational and technical assistance” available to them.
DHS is also set to assemble and disseminate guidance on “community-based targeted violence and terrorism prevention” and ensure that targeted communities are aware of the federal resources available to them.
And the State Department’s Office of the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism will bring together technology companies to discuss procedures for combating antisemitism online.
In separate remarks, Stuart Eizenstat, the administration’s special adviser for Holocaust issues, praised the House for passing the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which would codify the requirement that the Department of Education use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism and its examples in assessing campus antisemitism. Eizenstat said the bill would help clarify the definition of antisemitism.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) drew direct connections between the Holocaust, and the events that led up to it, and current events on U.S. college campuses, highlighting the role of German universities in perpetuating antisemitism and ultimately atrocities during the Holocaust.
“We remember what happened then, and now today, we are witnessing American universities quickly becoming hostile for Jewish students and faculty,” Johnson said. “The very campuses [that] were once the envy of the international academy have succumbed to an antisemitic virus… Now is the time for moral clarity, and we must put an end to this madness.”
Speaking graphically about both events, Johnson drew direct parallels between the atrocities of the Holocaust and the Oct. 7 attack.
“We must be graphic right now because the threat of repeating the past is so great,” Johnson said. “And some are trying to downplay, justify what happened on Oct. 7. Some are even blaming Israel for the barbaric, inhuman attacks. There are some who would prefer to criticize Israel and lecture them on their military tactics… than punish the terrorists who perpetrated these horrific crimes.”
Johnson added that it’s “very important we deliver” the “critical assistance” to Israel “without any delay at all” and that “we have to do all that we can, everything within our power, to ensure that evil does not prevail.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) likewise highlighted the “deeply disturbing rise in antisemitism on campuses, throughout the country and around the world, adding that it’s a “very searing time for the Jewish community.”
Jeffries called to “recommit to the principle of Never Again,” and to “eradicating antisemitism whenever and wherever it rears its ugly head.”
“We must crush antisemitism along with racism and sexism, Islamophobia, xenophobia, homophobia and all other forms of hatred, together,” Jeffries said. “That is the American way, together. And together, we will defeat antisemitism with the fierce urgency of now. That’s a moral necessity.”
Lankford: Sanders intends to hold hearing ‘not just on antisemitism,’ with focus on Islamophobia
LOS ANGELES — As the House Education and Workforce Committee prepares to hold its third major hearing on campus antisemitism later this month, the corresponding Senate committee — chaired by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) — has yet to hold any special hearings about rising antisemitism at American universities.
Sens. James Lankford (R-OK) and Jacky Rosen (D-NV), the co-chairs of the Senate Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Antisemitism, have been asking Sanders to call a hearing on the matter. As of last week, they hadn’t heard back from the Vermont progressive.
But in a conversation with Jewish Insider on Monday at the Milken Institute Global Conference, Lankford said that Sanders has now weighed in on the matter, telling Lankford that he intends to call a hearing with a focus that is “broader and not just on antisemitism. He wants to really focus on increasing Islamophobia, and a very different direction on it.”
“I have no issue with trying to be able to say no one should be discriminated against, but we want to be really clear what’s actually happening,” Lankford added. He and Rosen have sought stronger Senate action on campus antisemitism for two or three years, he said, so the issue is deeper than just the current spike.
“No one really took it seriously at that point. They are now. People do see it now,” said Lankford. “This is a bigger issue than what we thought was happening on campus. So we’re trying to just be really clear that this is not a knee jerk to October the seventh. This has grown for a while and we feel it’s important to be able to set that context.”
Lankford declined to say if he expects Sanders to come around to his view on the issue. But he pointed out that even a Senate hearing would not fix the problem of inaction by university administrators.
“Ultimately, I’m trying to figure out, how do we actually get administrations — how do we get people to engage, to enforce their own code of conduct on their own campus, just to be consistent? That’s doable. Many campuses have done that,” said Lankford. “We’re going to protect free speech, but we’re not going to allow people to be intimidated on their own campus.” (A Sanders spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)
Lankford called for the Senate to take up the Antisemitism Awareness Act that passed the House with bipartisan support next week, but he said he has not yet spoken to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) about when the Senate might consider the legislation. The bill’s adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism drew some pushback from both the right — among Christians who falsely claimed that the bill would criminalize statements that the Jews are responsible for Jesus’s death — and the left, where anti-Israel voices worry that the law would impinge on their ability to criticize Israel.
“It starts this whole big stir that the IHRA definition is suddenly going to outlaw the Bible and the New Testament is going to cause people to be arrested,” Lankford said. “The IHRA definition in the Antisemitism Awareness Act doesn’t take away free speech. It notifies a campus if you’re discriminating in this way, then that’s discrimination, the same as it would be for a Black student or Hispanic students or whatever it may be. That’s discrimination. Your federal funding would be at risk, as it would be or any other type of discrimination on your campus. So just don’t discriminate.”
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