[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 4 (Wednesday, January 8, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S86-S87]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Anti-Semitism

  Mr. COTTON. Madam President, this holiday season, the ancient 
darkness of anti-Semitism cast a shadow over New York City during 
Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights. The New York Police Department 
recorded at least nine separate attacks against Jews--more than one 
attack for each day of Hanukkah. New attacks are reported seemingly on 
a daily basis.
  In Crown Heights, the site of deadly anti-Semitic riots incited by Al 
Sharpton in 1991, a group of men beat up an Orthodox Jew and attacked 
another with a chair.
  In Williamsburg, another group terrorized an elderly Jewish man on 
the street. ``Jew, Hitler burned you,'' one of the criminals reportedly 
said. ``I'll shoot you.''
  Just outside the city, in Rockland County, a man with a machete 
stormed a celebration in a rabbi's home and injured five worshippers, 
leaving two in critical condition. The family of one victim, Josef 
Neumann, says he may never wake up from his coma.

[[Page S87]]

  These heinous attacks are part of a growing storm of anti-Semitism 
that has made Jewish Americans fearful to worship and walk the streets 
in their own communities. They come in the wake of the deadly rampage 
at the kosher market in Jersey City that left four innocent people 
dead, including a police detective, and of course they come in the wake 
of the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in our Nation's history: the 
massacre of 11 Jews at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh by a 
White supremacist.
  According to the FBI, our country suffered a 37-percent increase in 
anti-Semitic crimes between 2014 and 2018. According to the New York 
Police Department, the city suffered a 26-percent increase in anti-
Semitic crimes in the past year alone. That increase is alarming 
enough. So is the fact that most hate crimes reported in New York are 
crimes against Jews. While some of the increase is due to better 
reporting, much of it is not.
  Jewish Americans bear witness to this harsh reality. Anti-Semitism is 
an ancient hatred, and today it appears in new disguises. It festers on 
internet message boards and social media. It festers in so-called 
Washington think tanks like the Quincy Institute, an isolationist, 
blame-America-first money pit for so-called ``scholars'' who have 
written that American foreign policy could be fixed if only it were rid 
of the malign influence of Jewish money. It festers even on elite 
college campuses, which incubate the radical boycott, divestment, and 
sanctions movement--a movement to wage economic warfare against the 
Jewish State. These forms of anti-Semitism may be less bloody than 
street crime in New York, but they channel the same ancient hatred, the 
same conspiratorial and obsessive focus on the Jewish people.
  Anti-Semitic attacks are a symptom of a larger breakdown of public 
order in our major cities caused by politicians who are letting 
dangerous criminals roam our streets.
  While Jews were being attacked in New York City, a law went into 
effect eliminating pretrial detention and bail for most crimes, 
including serious crimes like stalking, arson, robbery, and even 
manslaughter and negligent homicide. This law was a gift to criminals 
just in time for the holidays. In some cases, it came with an actual 
gift. New York City's criminal justice system gives goodies like 
taxpayer-funded movie tickets to criminal suspects just for showing up 
to court--movie tickets for criminals. I wish I were joking, but the 
joke is on the law-abiding citizens of this Nation.
  These soft-on-crime politicians are doing their best to make crime 
pay in New York. Releasing criminals is the logical next step for the 
criminal-leniency movement.
  Thanks to the new bail law, an estimated 3,800 criminal suspects were 
released from New York jails before New Year's Day. Many of those 
suspects were arrested for new offenses within hours--within hours--of 
their release.
  Case in point: On the sixth day of Hanukkah, December 27, Tiffany 
Harris was arrested for attacking three Jewish women in Crown Heights. 
She shouted ``F-you Jews'' as she slapped them in a rage. Despite the 
violent nature of her crime, Harris was amazingly released without bail 
the very next day, December 28, the seventh day of Hanukkah. On the 
eighth day of Hanukkah, Harris was arrested yet again for assault. She 
was released for a second time the day after that and is in custody now 
only because she was arrested for now a third time for failing to 
comply with a court order.
  I can only imagine how demoralizing it must be for New York's police 
officers to arrest a violent criminal, only to risk their safety 
arresting them the next day for harming somebody else and the next day 
and the next day. How terrifying it must be for the witnesses of those 
crimes to contemplate giving evidence while the criminals they 
witnessed stalk the streets the very next day. And how enraging it must 
be for New York's Jews to suffer constant anti-Semitic attacks and know 
that the perpetrators will slide through a revolving door from the 
lockup back into their communities to spread more of their virulent, 
anti-Semitic hatred.
  Soft-on-crime politicians claim that cash bail and strong policing 
punish the poor, but is there a worse punishment for poor communities 
than flooding them with dangerous criminals, making them unlivable for 
many law-abiding Americans who call those neighborhoods home? Guess 
what. Those dangerous criminals aren't going back to live in fancy 
penthouses in the Upper East Side. They aren't living behind gated 
communities in Bethesda and Arlington. They are living in the very 
communities that most need policing. That is why the consequences of 
criminal leniency never fall on the rich elites who praise it the most. 
Instead, the consequences fall on the less fortunate and on the brave 
officers who are duty-bound to uphold the law, even as they receive 
less and less support from the political class.
  The real solution to disorder in our cities is the same as it always 
has been: more and better policing. New York's finest and police 
officers all across the country have broken crime waves in the past 
using steely resolve and superior force. They can do it again, if only 
we give them the freedom and support they need.
  Thankfully, most Americans know whose side we are on in the fight 
against crime. We stand with cops, not criminals. We stand for the 
Jewish people against the ancient hatred that stalks them even to this 
day.
  America liberated Nazi death camps in World War II, and we have 
served as a haven for persecuted Jews for longer than that. We must not 
allow the bigotry so common in Europe and the Middle East to spread 
here to our free shores. We must not allow our city streets to be 
plunged into the lawlessness of the not so distant past.