[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 91 (Tuesday, May 25, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3386-S3387]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             ANTI-SEMITISM

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, now on a related matter, the 
despicable, age-old specter of anti-Semitism continues to rear its 
head, even here in our country.
  Last week, authorities from New York to Los Angeles were 
investigating assaults on Jewish people. According to press reports, in 
New York City, one Jewish man was kicked, punched, and sprayed with 
chemicals by five or six men yelling anti-Sematic things. That 
happened, by the way, right in Times Square. A synagogue in Arizona was 
vandalized. So was another in Illinois. A Jewish family visiting South 
Florida had a car pull up next to them and multiple occupants begin 
screaming: ``Free Palestine . . . die, Jew.'' That is what he got for 
wearing his yarmulke in public.
  The head of the Anti-Defamation League said:

       We are tracking acts of harassment, vandalism, and violence 
     as well as a torrent of online abuse . . . it's happening all 
     around the world.

  This garbage--this garbage didn't begin a few weeks ago. It isn't a 
response to geopolitics. This hatred long predates the recent fighting 
between Israel and Hamas, and it hasn't gone anywhere since the cease-
fire.
  This spring, in the shadow of this Capitol Building, a U.S. Capitol 
Police officer was killed in broad daylight by an unbalanced follower 
of the Nation of Islam, the extremist group led by the anti-Semite 
Louis Farrakhan.

[[Page S3387]]

  This trash should be the easiest thing in the world for every person 
in a leadership position to call out. But perhaps--perhaps--because 
Israel has become a strangely controversial issue on the far left, the 
condemnations do not seem to be flowing quite as easily and 
unequivocally as they should.
  Yesterday, a Democratic Congressman from Minnesota tweeted this:

       I'll say the quiet part out loud. It's time for 
     ``progressives'' to start condemning anti-Semitism and 
     violent attacks on Jewish people with the same intention and 
     vigor demonstrated in other areas of activism. The silence 
     has been deafening.

  I couldn't say it better myself.
  So Senator Cotton and I are introducing new legislation to fight 
anti-Semitism. Our bill will support State and local law enforcement 
and ensure the bigoted thugs who are attacking Jewish Americans face 
the full force of our justice system.
  I am proud to be cosponsoring this legislation, although I regret 
that in the year of 2021, it remains, unfortunately, necessary. I hope 
every one of our colleagues will join Senator Cotton and myself.

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