The House Homeland Security Committee’s Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence will hold a hearing on Wednesday morning probing the rising influence of anti-Israel extremist groups as a threat to U.S. national security.

The hearing is set to include testimony from representatives of the Anti-Defamation League, Secure Community Network, American Jewish Committee and the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank behind the Project Esther proposal to combat antisemitism.

Based on written testimony reviewed by Jewish Insider, SCN’s deputy director of intelligence, Kerry Sleeper, is planning to highlight data showing that threats to the lives of Jews are likely to increase 40% in 2025 in comparison with the previous year, that 6,000 violent online threats to the Jewish community were posted following the Capital Jewish Museum murders last month and that domestic antisemitic radicalization has surged in the past year, increasing the likelihood of further attacks.

Sleeper will recommend that the administration put together a national strategy to ensure Jewish security, with input from all levels of law enforcement and Jewish security organizations, to be implemented by a dedicated national task force; improve intelligence sharing among security groups and federal and local law enforcement; establish a dedicated analysis unit at the Department of Homeland Security to monitor antisemitic threats; address the role of online extremist networks; and establish a task force on Jewish security including federal, state and local law enforcement.

Julie Fishman Rayman, AJC’s senior vice president for policy and political affairs, will highlight the threat posed by terrorist and anti-Israel groups to Jewish safety, as well as data showing that Jews are equally afraid of threats from the political left and right, an AJC spokesperson said.

Fishman Rayman will also urge Congress to provide at least $500 million for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program; support the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships (CP3) at the Department of Homeland Security, aimed at preventing terrorism through partnerships between law enforcement, the private sector and communities; advocate for an interagency national strategy and coordinator to combat antisemitism; and pass legislation limiting legal protections for social media.

ProPublica recently revealed that the administration picked a 22-year-old recent college graduate who lacks any apparent national security expertise to lead CP3.

Oren Segal, the senior vice president of counter-extremism and intelligence at the ADL, will highlight recent antisemitic attacks tied to anti-Israel extremism and the ways that the attacks have been normalized and justified on social media. 

“They fuel an environment where targeted attacks against the Jewish community become increasingly likely,” Segal will say, per his prepared remarks. “While the grievances driving this violence are often framed as opposition to Israel, they frequently include expressions dehumanizing Zionists and Jews, and support for terrorist groups. When Jews are blamed for the policies of Israel, it is not only antisemitic — it is dangerous.”

He will point to the way that the groups Samidoun and Unity of Fields as well as some Students for Justice in Palestine chapters have spread terrorist propaganda and received funding with little oversight or examination.

“Despite years of warnings and mounting data, antisemitism, and the violence it often animates, continues to be dismissed, minimized, and politicized,” he will testify.

Segal will call for Congress to increase NSGP funding, fund programs like CP3, “empower” the administration’s antisemitism task force with a mandate and resources to work across agencies, pass the Antisemitism Awareness Act and the HEAL Act, address antisemitism on social media and crack down on those who provide material support for terrorism.

James Carafano, a senior counselor and fellow at Heritage, will be testifying on behalf of the think tank. Heritage did not provide a preview of his testimony, but directed JI to his past public writings, which have called for refocusing U.S. counterterrorism efforts against Islamist extremism and described the conservative movement as a home for American Jews.

Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX), who chairs the subcommittee, told The Daily Signal that the antisemitic threat level is the highest it’s been in decades.

Pfluger said the hearing aims to analyze potential connections “between this terrorist style mindset, illegal immigration, online radicalization, and those that would perpetrate crimes that are associated with an anti-Jewish, antisemitic type of narrative,” with the goal of understanding the radicalization process.

The House Education and Workforce Committee announced that its next hearing on campus antisemitism will feature testimony from the leaders of Georgetown University, University of California, Berkeley and the City University of New York.

The hearing, set for July 9, will include testimony from Georgetown’s interim president, Robert Groves, UC Berkeley Chancellor Rich Lyons and CUNY Chancellor Félix Matos Rodríguez. Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI), the committee’s chair, indicated in a statement that the committee plans to focus the hearing on the issues driving campus antisemitism including foreign funding and antisemitic student groups.

“We continue to see antisemitic hatred festering at schools across the country,” Walberg said. “While much of the discussion has focused on the devastating effects of antisemitism, this hearing will focus on the underlying factors instigating antisemitic upheaval and hatred on campus. Until these factors — such as foreign funding and antisemitic student and faculty groups — are addressed, antisemitism will persist on college campuses. Our Committee is building on its promise to protect Jewish students and faculty while many university leaders refuse to hold agitators of this bigotry, hatred, and discrimination accountable.”

The funding Georgetown has received from Qatar, in connection with its Qatar campus, has come under intense scrutiny in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel.

UC Berkeley has seen a series of disruptive anti-Israel incidents, including a riot that shut down a speaking event, a disruption of a law school event at the dean’s home and various other incidents including assault, harassment, vandalism and robbery. An anti-Israel student group at Berkeley also praised the Oct. 7 attack.

CUNY has faced antisemitism issues predating Oct. 7 and Jewish students have been targeted with antisemitic harassment. Last year, CUNY’s Baruch College tried to cancel a Rosh Hashanah celebration, telling students that it could not “guarantee their security.”

A Georgetown University spokesperson said Groves “looks forward to testifying before the Committee and describing Georgetown’s efforts to combat antisemitism.”

“As a Catholic and Jesuit University, Georgetown condemns antisemitism and all forms of hatred and is committed to ensuring our university is a safe and welcoming space for every member of our community,” the spokesperson continued. “Given its mission of encouraging inter-religious dialogue Georgetown has not only implemented programs and resources to prevent and address antisemitism, but has also worked to cultivate a strong interfaith mission, complete with a robust Office of Jewish Life, to ensure students from all traditions are welcomed and supported in their educational and faith journey.”

A CUNY spokesperson said, “The City University of New York is firmly committed to combating antisemitism and ensuring every student and faculty member is safe from discrimination and harassment. We look forward to discussing the steps we are taking to support Jewish members of our campus community and to uphold CUNY’s values of inclusion, safety and respect for all.”

A Berkeley spokesperson said, “UC Berkeley is committed to combating antisemitism and all forms of hate and has taken meaningful action to achieve this. Chancellor Lyons looks forward to testifying before the committee to share how the campus has been investing, and continues to invest, in resources and programs designed to prevent and address antisemitism on the Berkeley campus.”

The Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing on Thursday on ending biannual time changes between standard and daylight saving time. Lawmakers who attended appeared unanimously supportive of eliminating the changes, with the primary debate revolving around how to implement the change.

President Donald Trump has voiced support for making daylight saving time permanent, feeding into what appears to be growing momentum on the issue, after the Senate approved legislation, the Sunshine Protection Act, to that effect in 2022. The same legislation is again pending in each chamber.

Orthodox Jewish groups have rallied against efforts to make daylight saving time permanent. Doing so, they argue, would force young children to travel to school in the dark and make it difficult or, in some cases, impossible for Orthodox Jews to attend post-sunrise morning prayers before work.

Orthodox Jewish groups lobbied aggressively to halt progress in the time change legislation in the House in 2022 after its surprise Senate passage.

Agudath Israel of America sent a memo to the Senate Commerce Committee ahead of the hearing presenting a series of arguments against making daylight saving time permanent, including that making children commute to school before sunrise has been demonstrated to be “a prescription for disaster.”

The memo specifically highlights a previous decision in the 1970s to make daylight saving time permanent, which was quickly repealed amid public outcry and findings that the change did not achieve the desired effects in energy savings and instead disrupted public life.

The memo notes that the change would particularly impact students attending Jewish schools, many of whom begin their school days at 7:30 a.m. and are not entitled to public busing.

“Whatever benefits that may accrue due to extended DST pales in comparison to the cost in safety of our children,” the Agudah memo reads.

It also cites concerns about morning prayer observance, calling the potential change “an extreme hardship” and saying “Jewish religious and professional life will be deeply upended.”

A.D. Motzen, Agudah’s national director of government affairs, told Jewish Insider that Congress has taken the Orthodox Jewish community’s views into account before during previous debates on extending Daylight Saving Time and said he’s hopeful lawmakers will do the same now.

He said that people living on the East Coast may not realize that in the Midwest, making daylight saving time permanent would mean that students would have to commute to schools in the pitch dark, well before dawn.

“It’s an issue that’s real. It affects not just our religious practice, but therefore it affects work. It affects school. It affects parents’ working ability. It has a ripple effect,” Motzen said. “A community that had a daily minyan (quorum of ten men for prayer) for 100 years may struggle to find a minyan if all the people need to go to work. And that has an effect on a community.”

At the hearing, lawmakers and witnesses — including an advocate for ending time changes, the leader of the National Golf Course Owners Association, a physician and neuroscientist and an automotive safety expert — largely agreed that the annual time changes should end, but differed on how.

“I think the message people got was many people do not want to have the clock changed, and as we heard in the hearing, there are different views of which of the two permanent times is better,” Motzen said.

Some witnesses and lawmakers argued in favor of making daylight saving time permanent, meaning later sunrises in the mornings and more daylight in the evenings year-round. Others argued for the opposite, making standard time permanent. 

Others argued that the time changes should be ended one way or the other, or said that Congress should mandate the end of the time changes but leave it to states to determine which time system to make permanent.