Sens. James Lankford (R-OK) and Jacky Rosen (D-NV) urged Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on Tuesday to move quickly to advance a legislative package that would address rising antisemitism and religious hate generally — something Congress has repeatedly struggled and failed to do since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza.

In a letter to the Senate leaders, Lankford and Rosen, who co-chair the chamber’s antisemitism task force, called for a bipartisan legislative package including funding increases for security assistance to religious institutions and improved training, prevention and prosecution efforts. The letter comes days after an arson attack at the largest synagogue in Mississippi, which is mentioned in the letter.

The letter does not mention high-profile bills addressing antisemitism specifically — such as the Antisemitism Awareness Act — which have previously proven difficult to pass amid growing objections on both sides of the aisle. The letter takes a broader approach, focusing on faith communities generally and the attacks that both Jewish and non-Jewish religious institutions have faced.

“As Senators committed to safeguarding Americans’ fundamental freedom to worship without fear, we write to express deep concern about the rising tide of violence, intimidation, and vandalism targeting faith-based institutions across our country,” Lankford and Rosen wrote. “As we begin the new year, threats to churches, synagogues, mosques, gurdwaras, temples, and schools have not abated. That is why we believe Congress must act swiftly to protect houses of worship, faith-based schools, and the communities they serve.”

The letter calls for legislation to increase funding for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program and to make sure funds are disbursed quickly; to clarify eligible uses for grant funding to include security contractors, physical security measures, emergency communication tools and security cameras; and to direct the administration to process NSGP applications quickly and provide free technical assistance to institutions applying for grants.

These calls follow and come in response to a year of delays and frustration with NSGP implementation by the administration. Grants for 2025 still have not been awarded or disbursed and the timeline for doing so remains unclear, with lawmakers saying they’ve been left in the dark by the administration.

Lankford and Rosen also called for the proposed legislative package to direct federal law enforcement to improve information sharing with religious community security groups, including implementing channels for the government to quickly share threat information and for religious communities to report suspicious activity, as well as to fund “scalable training” for community professionals and volunteers.

They said the Senate should pass the Pray Safe Act — the only specific pending legislation mentioned within the letter. The bipartisan and largely noncontroversial bill, which has nonetheless languished for multiple congressional sessions, would create a federal database on security best practices, training information and potential federal funding opportunities.

And they urged the Senate to provide additional resources to prosecute violence and property crimes against religious communities, to improve federal coordination with state and local law enforcement and to improve data collection and sharing on such incidents.

Emphasizing the urgency to protect impacted communities, the lawmakers said that they are “prepared to work” with the Senate leaders’ teams “immediately to translate the items above into text that can move quickly.”

They also said that they want to see the package include “near-term funding and implementation directives” in addition to any longer-term policy and programmatic changes.

“This package of priorities reflects our shared obligation — rooted in the First Amendment and our national character — to ensure that Americans can pray, learn, celebrate, and mourn in safety,” the lawmakers said. “We also recognize that the federal government cannot substitute for local leadership, nor for the resilience and vigilance of faith communities themselves. But Congress can and should ensure that federal resources are timely, accessible, and proportional to risk, and that our national security enterprise treats attacks on houses of worship with the seriousness they warrant.”

A Lankford spokesperson praised Thune’s engagement on the issue. Before taking office as the Senate majority leader, Thune pledged to take action on antisemitism, though efforts to advance the Antisemitism Awareness Act stalled last year.
“The Senate, under Sen. Thune’s leadership, has been clear about the seriousness of the violence and intimidation facing Jewish Americans and other faith communities,” the Lankford spokesperson told Jewish Insider. “Sen. Lankford appreciates Leader Thune’s engagement on combatting antisemitism and ensuring Americans can worship without fear.”

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, multiple Jewish lawmakers emphasized that the Sunday terror attack in which 15 people were killed at a Hanukkah celebration in Sydney, Australia, came after warnings from the Australian Jewish community, and Jewish communities around the world, about the rising violent threats they face —  warnings that have often gone ignored, the lawmakers said.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) said that Australian Jews and others around the world have been warning “for far too long” about the “alarming, explosive rise in violent antisemitism.”

“That threat, those warnings, have fallen on deaf ears, and we are living with those consequences now,” Wasserman Schultz said. “I hope that this tragedy is the wake-up call that world leaders need to truly stand up and protect their Jewish communities from antisemitism, whether that manifests online or in person.”

She said that leaders around the world “must do better.”

“Lives are at stake. This is not pretend. These enemies of the Jewish people are not playing games. They mean to end our existence as a people,” she continued. “We will not allow that. Our allies and friends must help us make sure that never happens.”

Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL), a co-chair of the Congressional Jewish Caucus, emphasized that the attack was “not predicted” but “it was predictable.”

“For too long, the Jewish community in Australia was saying to the authorities, saying to the government, ‘Antisemitism is a cancer eating away at the soul of the nation, and it’s going to result in the death of Jews in the land,’ and that’s what we saw on Sunday,” Schneider continued.

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) emphasized that Australia’s special envoy for antisemitism had in July offered a plan to combat antisemitism, but the plan had not been fully implemented by the Australian government.

The briefing was hosted by Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Mike Lawler (R-NY) and the American Jewish Committee.

Gottheimer said that the public outcry he had seen since the Sydney massacre “is a sign to me that there is a recognition that we can do something if we stand together.”

“We should all be going after the root of the rising scourge of antisemitic hate around the world,” he added. “We must stand up to our foreign adversaries like the government of Iran, and the terrorist organizations that they support, for driving this hatred and violence for the Jewish people.”

Lawler said that the lawmakers had gathered “united in a bipartisan way to say that we will not tolerate this. We will not accept this as the norm that our Jewish brothers and sisters have to live in fear of being murdered while practicing their faith.”

AJC CEO Ted Deutch, who previously represented a South Florida House district, urged lawmakers to act promptly to confirm Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun as the U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism and to provide adequate funding for the office, to strongly condemn the attack, to publicly stand with the Jewish community and to investigate foreign-backed antisemitism and influence operations targeting Jews globally.

“In the U.S. and with our allies, we’ve got to take concrete steps to strengthen our intelligence and counterterrorism cooperation, protect our communities, to preserve democratic stability and to prevent massacres like the one that happened on Bondi Beach,” Deutch continued.

William Daroff, the CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said, “If there was ever any doubt that anti-Zionism and antisemitism are one and the same, the attacks since Oct. 7 erase it. Jews are being targeted not for policy, but for presence. Not for politics, but for being Jewish, visible and alive.”

Marina Rosenberg, the Anti-Defamation League’s vice president of international affairs, said that she and a global coalition of Jewish leaders had visited Australia just days before the massacre to “sound the alarm on the dangers of surging antisemitism, calling on officials to act before it was too late. Tragically, for our brothers and sisters in Australia, it is too late.”

Rosenberg also emphasized that the attack is part of a “global pattern targeting Jewish communities,” not an isolated incident. She said that Congress must boost security funding for religious institutions and confirm Kaploun.

Other lawmakers who attended the briefing included Reps. Tim Burchett (R-TN), Chris Smith (R-NJ), Tom Kean Jr. (R-NJ), Madeleine Dean (D-PA), Nick LaLota (R-NY), Jonathan Jackson (D-OH), Brad Sherman (D-CA), Steve Cohen (D-TN), Grace Meng (D-NY), Lois Frankel (D-FL), Laura Gillen (D-NY), Wesley Bell (D-MO), Joe Wilson (R-SC) and George Latimer (D-NY).