[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 196 (Wednesday, November 29, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5643-S5647]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Anti-Semitism

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, today, I come to the floor to speak on a 
subject of great importance--the rise of anti-Semitism in America.
  I feel compelled to speak because I am the highest ranking Jewish 
elected official in America--in fact, the highest ranking Jewish 
elected official ever in American history--and I have noticed a 
significant disparity between how Jewish people regard the rise of 
anti-Semitism and how many of my non-Jewish friends regard it. To us, 
the Jewish people, the rise of anti-Semitism is a crisis--a five-alarm 
fire that must be extinguished. For so many other people of good will, 
it is merely a problem, a matter of concern. So, today, I want to use 
my platform to explain why so many Jewish people see this problem as a 
crisis.
  Before I get into that, I want to offer two important caveats about 
what this speech is not.
  This speech is not an attempt to label most criticism of Israel and 
the Israeli Government, generally, as anti-Semitic. I don't believe 
that criticism is. And this speech is also not an attempt to pit hate 
toward one group against that of another. I believe that bigotry 
against one group of Americans is bigotry against all, and that is why 
I have championed legislation, like the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, which 
targets violence against Asian Americans, and the Nonprofit Security 
Grant Program, which provides funding to help all houses of worship--
churches, mosques, synagogues, gurdwaras--and to protect them from 
extremists.
  When President Trump called for a Muslim ban during the first weeks 
of his Presidency, I held an emergency press conference to protest the 
ban alongside a Muslim mom and four of her daughters--all dressed in 
chadors--who said they feared they might never see their father again. 
It was a deeply distressing moment, and I am an emotional sort. I began 
to cry. President Trump saw me crying on TV and gave me a nickname--
``Cryin' Chuck Schumer.'' I was and am proud of that moniker.
  The growing and vibrant Arab-American community is a vital part of 
our Nation and of my city, and I condemn unequivocally any vitriol and 
hatred against them. We tragically saw where such hatred can lead 
sometimes--in Vermont this week--and that is unacceptable.

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  But, today, I want to focus my remarks on anti-Semitism because it 
hits so close to home for me and because I believe this moment demands 
it.
  I have just said what this speech is not. So what is this speech 
about?
  I want to describe the fears and anxieties of many Jewish Americans 
right now, particularly after October 7, who feel there are aspects of 
the debate around Israel and Gaza that are crossing over into anti-
Semitism--rank anti-Semitism, with Jewish people simply being targeted 
for being Jewish--having nothing to do with Israel. I want to explain 
through the lens of history why this is so dangerous. The normalization 
and exacerbation of this rise in hate is the danger many Jewish people 
fear most. And, finally, I want to suggest how and why I hope that all 
Americans of good will can come together and do a better job of 
condemning such views and such behavior. But, first, let us establish 
the facts.

  There is no question that anti-Semitism is a serious problem in 
America. In general, Jewish Americans represent 2 percent of the U.S. 
population. Yet we are the targets of 55 percent of all religion-based 
hate crimes reported by the FBI. This problem has been steadily 
worsening in recent years, but after Hamas attacked Israel on October 
7, hate crimes against Jewish Americans have skyrocketed. The Anti-
Defamation League estimates that anti-Semitic incidents have increased 
nearly 300 percent since October 7. The NYPD has recorded a 214-percent 
increase in New York City.
  After October 7, Jewish Americans are feeling singled out, targeted, 
and isolated. In many ways, we feel alone. The solidarity that Jewish 
Americans initially received from many of our fellow citizens was 
quickly drowned out by other voices.
  While the dead bodies of Jewish Israelis were still warm, while 
hundreds of Jewish Israelis were being carried as hostages back to 
Hamas tunnels under Gaza, Jewish Americans were alarmed to see some of 
our fellow citizens characterize a brutal terrorist attack as justified 
because of the actions of the Israeli Government. A vicious, blood-
curdling, premeditated massacre of innocent women, men, children, the 
elderly--justified. Even worse, in some cases, people even celebrated 
what happened, describing it as the deserved fate of colonizers and 
calling for glory to the martyrs who carried out these heinous attacks. 
That happened here in America.
  Many of the people who express these sentiments in America aren't 
neo-Nazis or card-carrying Klan members or Islamist extremists. They 
are, in many cases, people who most liberal Jewish Americans felt 
previously were their ideological fellow travelers. Not long ago, many 
of us marched together for Black and Brown lives; we stood against 
anti-Asian hatred; we protested bigotry against the LGBTQ community; we 
fought for reproductive justice--out of the recognition that injustice 
against one oppressed group is injustice against all.
  But, apparently, in the eyes of some, this principle does not extend 
to the Jewish people: the largely Ashkenazi survivors of decades of 
pogroms in Imperial Russia and, in the Holocaust under Nazi Germany, 
their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren; the Mizrahi, 
who were forcibly evicted from Arab countries, and their descendants; 
the many Sephardim, who were scattered across the Mediterranean after 
they were expelled from Spain and Portugal in the late 1400s.
  Do they not deserve the solidarity of those who advocate for the 
rights and dignity of the oppressed, given the long history and 
persecution of the Jewish people throughout the world?
  Many of those protesting Israeli policy note that at least 700,000 
Palestinians were displaced or forced from their homes in 1948, but 
they never mention the 600,000 Mizrahi Jews across the Arab world who 
were also displaced, whose property was confiscated, whose lives were 
threatened, who were expelled from their communities.
  The hope, at the time, was that there would be two states--a Jewish 
state and a Palestinian state--living side by side. The plan was for 
the State of Israel to absorb the Jewish people from Arab lands and the 
new Palestinian State to absorb the Palestinians who now lived in 
Israel. In fact, Israel did absorb the displaced Jewish people of Arab 
lands, but the Arab nations, instead, sanctioned the United Nations to 
set up refugee camps for the Palestinians, refusing to accept the 
possibility that any of them would ever be relocated.
  Several times throughout history, Israeli Prime Ministers called for 
a return to close to the pre-1967 borders established by the United 
Nations plan. Those calls were rejected by Yasser Arafat, the PLO, and 
the wider Arab community. Many, if not most, Jewish Americans, 
including myself, supported a two-state solution. We disagreed with 
Prime Minister Netanyahu and his administration's encouragement of 
militant settlers in the West Bank, which has become a considerable 
obstacle to a two-state solution.
  But the reason why I invoke history about the founding of the Israeli 
State is because forgetting or even deliberately ignoring this vital 
context is dangerous. Some of the most extreme rhetoric against Israel 
has emboldened anti-Semites who are attacking Jewish people simply 
because they are Jewish--independent of anything having to do with 
Israel.
  Those who are inclined to examine the world through the lens of 
oppressors versus the oppressed should take note that the many 
thousands of years of Jewish history are defined by oppression. From 
October 7, 2023, in southern Israel; to 2018 at the Tree of Life 
Synagogue in Pittsburgh; to 1999 at the Los Angeles JCC; to 1986 at the 
Neve Shalom Synagogue in Istanbul; to 1974 at the Netiv Meir Elementary 
School in Ma'alot; to Yom Kippur, 1973, in the Golan Heights; to 1972 
at the Munich Olympics and Lod Airport; to 1967 at the Straits of 
Tiran; to the 1940s and 1930s in Germany and Central Europe; to the 
1800s in the Pale of Settlement; to 1679 in Yemen; to 1492 in Spain, 
1394 in France, 1290 in England; to the Crusades of the Middle Ages; to 
629 in Galilee; to the year 73 in Jerusalem; to 586 B.C. in Judea; to 
722 B.C.E. in Samaria; to the 13th century B.C.E. in Egypt, the Jewish 
people have been humiliated, ostracized, expelled, enslaved, and 
massacred for millennia.
  To paraphrase lines recited every year, century after century, at 
Passover Seder: This is the bread of affliction that our forefathers 
ate in the land of Egypt. . . . In every generation, they rise up to 
destroy us.
  For Jewish people all across the world, the history of our trauma, 
going back many generations, is central to any discussion about our 
future. Too many Americans, especially in our younger generation, don't 
have a full understanding of this history. Because some Jewish people 
have done well in America, because Israel has increased its power and 
territory, there are people who feel that Jewish Americans are not 
vulnerable; that we have the strength and security to overcome 
prejudice and bigotry; that we have, to quote the language of some, 
become the ``oppressors.'' In fact, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories 
throughout the generations often theorize, often weaponize this very 
dynamic by pitting what successes the Jewish people have achieved 
against them and against their fellow countrymen. That has been 
throughout history. It is happening now.
  But for many Jewish Americans, any strength and security that we 
enjoy always feels tenuous. No matter how well we are doing, it can all 
be taken away in an instant. That is just how it is. We only have to 
look back a century, a few generations, to see how this can happen.
  Growing up, I remember my grandfather telling me that he rooted for 
Germany over Russia in World War I because Germans treated the Jewish 
people so much better than Russia did.
  In the early 1900s, German Jews were one of the most secure and 
prosperous ethnic communities in Europe, but in the span of a decade, 
all of that changed.
  When the Nazis first marched in the streets and held rallies decrying 
the so-called international financiers, war profiteers, and communists, 
many Germans of good will either stayed silent or marched alongside of 
them, not necessarily realizing what they were aiding and abetting. But 
when Adolf Hitler took the podium just a few years later at the 
Reichstag, it was clear by

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then that the terms ``international financiers,'' ``war profiteers,'' 
and ``communists'' represented the Jewish people, whom Hitler called 
``parasites'' feeding on the body and productive work of other nations.
  By bits and pieces, the Nazis softened the ground rhetorically for 
what Hitler eventually stated was his true goal: ``the annihilation of 
the Jewish race in Europe.'' So many of those Germans of good will who 
marched in the early years of Hitler's ascension stayed on the 
sidelines after his horrifying intent was made clear. The end result, 
as we all know, was the most targeted and systematic genocide in all of 
human history. Six million Jewish people were exterminated in a few 
years while so many others turned a blind eye.
  History shows that anti-Semitism is deeply embedded in Europe. I have 
always said it is the poison of European societies--anti-Semitism is 
the poison of European societies, just as racism against Black 
Americans is the poison of our society.
  While we are thankfully a far ways away from Nazi Germany today, this 
is why many people worry about the marches today, especially in Europe. 
What may begin as legitimate criticism of Israeli policy or even a 
valid debate over other religious, economic, and political issues can 
sometimes cross into something darker: attacking Jewish people for 
simply being Jewish.
  Obviously, many of those marching here in the United States do not 
have any evil intent, but when Jewish people hear chants like ``from 
the river to the sea''--a founding slogan of Hamas, a terrorist group 
that is not shy about their goal to eradicate the Jewish people in 
Israel and around the globe--we are alarmed.
  When we see signs in the crowd that read ``by any means necessary'' 
after the most violent attack ever against Israeli civilians, we are 
appalled at the casual invocation of such savagery.
  When we see protesters at Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade compare the 
genocide of the Holocaust equivalently to the Israeli army's actions to 
defeat Hamas in self-defense of their people, we are shocked.
  When we see many people and news organizations remain neutral about 
the basic absurdity of these claims and actions, we are deeply 
disappointed.
  More than anything, we are worried, quite naturally, given the twists 
and turns of history, about where these actions and sentiments could 
eventually lead. Now, this is no intellectual exercise for us. For many 
Jewish people, it is like a matter of survival, informed once again by 
history--in this case, very personal history to me.
  Take the story of my own family. My grandfather came to Ellis Island 
at a very young age from Eastern Europe without an education, without a 
penny to his name. He was a street urchin, stealing apples from the 
pushcarts just to survive, but he dreamt of a brighter future for 
himself and his family.
  My grandfather ended up with the paper workers in Utica, NY, and he 
helped form the union there. But he lost his job in the lead-up to 
World War II, so he came back to New York City and bought a little 
exterminating business.
  His son--my father--followed in his footsteps and eventually took 
over that exterminating business. My father struggled in that job, 
barely making ends meet, but together with my mom, he provided a stable 
and loving home in Brooklyn for my siblings and me, where we were able 
to flourish.
  Because of the tolerance and the openness and the opportunity that 
courses through all of American life, I now stand before you as the 
majority leader of the United States Senate--the highest elected office 
a Jewish person has ever attained in the history of this country. Only 
in America--only in America--could an exterminator's son grow up to be 
the first Jewish party leader in the Senate.
  But it must be said also that this is not the norm in the grand and 
long scheme of Jewish history. While my grandfather came to America and 
encountered opportunity, many of his siblings, cousins, aunts and 
uncles, and other family members remained behind in Eastern Europe.
  When I was still a young boy, I was told why many branches of our 
family tree stopped growing forever.
  In 1941, when the Nazis invaded Ukraine, then part of Galicia, they 
asked my great-grandmother--the matriarch of the family, the wife of a 
locally revered rabbi--to gather her children, her grandchildren, and 
her great-grandchildren on the porch of her home, which was located in 
the town square. As more than 30 people gathered on the porch, aged 85 
to 3 months, the Nazis forced the remaining Jewish citizens of the town 
to gather in the town square and watch.
  When the Nazis told my great-grandmother ``You are coming with us,'' 
she refused, and they machine-gunned down every last one of them--the 
babies, the elderly, everybody in between.
  This story resonated deeply in my heart when I first started learning 
the details of the October 7 massacre in Israel. I was in China with a 
bipartisan delegation of my fellow Senators trying to get President Xi 
Jinping to open up Chinese markets to American companies and stop the 
flow of fentanyl across our borders.
  As the horrors of October 7 started coming into focus, the Israeli 
Ambassador to China shared with me the story of what she heard had just 
happened in one of the kibbutzim called Be'eri. Hamas terrorists 
entered the kibbutz on October 7 and killed more than 120 Jewish 
residents, from the elderly to babies.
  Sadly, it was not the first time I heard of such evil being committed 
against the Jewish people. Most, if not all, Jewish Americans know 
stories similar to that of my family. Most, if not all, of us learned 
this story at a young age. It will be imprinted on our hearts for as 
long as we live.
  All Jewish Americans carry in them the scar tissue of this 
generational trauma, and that directly informs how we are experiencing 
and processing the rhetoric of today. We see and hear things 
differently from others because we are deeply sensitive to the 
depravation and horrors that can follow the targeting of Jewish people 
if it is not repudiated, which brings me back to today.
  While many protesters no doubt view their actions as a compassionate 
expression of solidarity with the Palestinian people, for many Jewish 
Americans, we feel in too many instances, some of the most extreme 
rhetoric gives license to darker ideas that have always lurked below 
the surface of every question involving the Jewish people. Anti-Semites 
have always trafficked in coded language and action to define Jewish 
people as unworthy of the rights and privileges afforded to other 
groups.
  I believe there are plenty of people who chant ``From the river to 
the sea, Palestine will be free'' not because they hate Jewish people 
but because they support a better future for Palestinians. But there is 
no question that Hamas and other terrorist organizations have used this 
slogan to represent their intention to eliminate Jewish people not only 
from Israel but from every corner of the Earth.
  Given the history of oppression, expulsion, and state violence that 
is practically embedded in Jewish DNA, can you blame the Jewish people 
for hearing a violently anti-Semitic message loud and clear anytime we 
hear that chant?
  We shouldn't accept this sort of language from anybody any more than 
we accept other racist dog whistles, like invoking ``welfare queens'' 
to criticize safety net programs or calling COVID-19 the ``Chinese 
virus.'' And that goes for extreme rightwing Jewish settlers who also 
use deplorable language and who don't believe there should be any 
Palestinians between the river and the sea.
  Anti-Semites are taking advantage of the pro-Palestinian movement to 
espouse hatred and bigotry toward Jewish people. But rather than call 
out this dangerous behavior for what it is, we see so many of our 
friends and fellow citizens, particularly young people who yearn for 
justice, unknowingly aiding and abetting their cause.
  Worse, many of our friends and allies whose support we need now more 
than ever during this moment of intense Jewish pain have brushed aside 
these concerns. Suddenly, they don't want to hear about anti-Semitism 
or the ultimate goal of Hamas. When I have asked some of the marchers 
what they would do about Hamas, they don't have an answer. Many don't 
seem to care. So Jewish Americans are left alone--at least in our 
eyes--to ponder what this all means and where it could lead.

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  Can you understand why the Jewish people feel isolated when we hear 
some praise Hamas and chant its vicious slogan? Can you blame us for 
feeling vulnerable only 80 years after Hitler wiped out half the Jewish 
population across the world while so many countries turned their back? 
Can you appreciate the deep fear we have about what Hamas might do if 
left to their own devices? Because the long arc of Jewish history 
teaches us a lesson that is hard to forget: Ultimately, we are alone.
  As a teenager growing up halfway across the world from Israel in 
Brooklyn during the 1950s and 1960s, I remember this feeling of 
aloneness myself. When many of the world's airlines boycotted Israel so 
that they could maintain business with the Arab world, I admired Air 
France, as a little boy, because only they would fly to Israel. I 
preferred to drink Coca-Cola to Pepsi because Coca-Cola did business in 
Israel and refused to participate in a biased boycott. Later, I 
remember--in June of 1967--walking in solitary silence to class at 
Madison High School with a transistor radio held to my ear, listening 
to the news reports about the Six-Day War and praying to God that 
Israel would survive.
  On top of feeling alone, the second dominant feeling that Jewish 
people have endured throughout history has been the sting of the double 
standard, which is the way the world has practiced anti-Semitism over 
and over again.
  To the Jewish people, the double standard has been ever present and 
is at the root of anti-Semitism. The double standard is very simple: 
What is good for everybody is never good for the Jew. And when it comes 
time to assign blame for some problem, the Jew is always the first 
target. And in recent decades, this double standard has manifested 
itself in the way much of the world treats Israel differently than 
anybody else.
  The double standard was made clear to me when I was in college. I 
remember the day when the great and articulate Israeli Ambassador to 
the United Nations, Abba Eban, was invited to come lecture on campus 
while the Students for a Democratic Society and the Progressive Labor 
Party were waging a campaign against Israel's right to exist.
  Two thousand people gathered in the large auditorium to see 
Ambassador Eban, and the members of the SDS and PLP sat in the gallery 
and hung a banner saying ``Fight the Zionist Imperialists.''
  When the members of the SDS and PLP tried to shout him down, Eban 
pointed his finger to the protesters in the gallery, and with his 
Etonian inflection, he calmly but strongly delivered a statement I will 
never forget and that I will paraphrase now.
  He said: I am talking to you, up there in the gallery. Every time a 
people gets their statehood, you applaud them. The Nigerians, the 
Pakistanis, the Zambians--you applaud their getting statehood. There is 
only one people, when they gain statehood, you don't applaud--you 
condemn it--and that is the Jewish people.
  We Jews are used to that, he said. We have lived with a double 
standard throughout the centuries. There were always things the Jews 
couldn't do. Everyone could be a farmer but not the Jew. Everyone could 
be a carpenter but not the Jew, he said. Everyone could move to Moscow 
but not the Jew. And everyone can have their own state but not the Jew.
  There is a word for it, he said to them. That is anti-Semitism, and I 
accuse you in the gallery of it.
  And the protesters slinked off.
  This double standard persists in America today, and it is once again 
leaving Jewish people to feel isolated and alone.
  In the immediate aftermath of October 7, an attack on defenseless 
civilians--the elderly, women, babies--a good number of people skipped 
over expressing sympathy for its victims in their haste to blame the 
attack on the past actions of the Israeli Government.
  Can anyone imagine a horrific terrorist attack in another country 
receiving such a reception?
  And when Hamas terrorists actively hide behind innocent Palestinians, 
knowing that many of those civilians will die in the Israeli response, 
why does the criticism for any civilian death seem to fall exclusively 
on Israel and not at all on Hamas?
  My heart breaks for the thousands of Palestinian civilians who have 
been killed or are suffering in this conflict--so many children. And I 
have urged the Israeli Government to minimize civilian casualties on 
many occasions. But by committing such heinous atrocities on October 7 
before sneaking back into their tunnels underneath hospitals and 
refugee camps in Gaza, Hamas has knowingly invited an immense civilian 
toll during the war, exploiting the double standard that so much of the 
world applies to Israel.
  Of course--let me repeat--that does not relieve Israel of the 
responsibility to protect innocent Palestinian lives, and I have been 
among the first to tell Israeli leaders they must act according to 
international law. I am also fighting for critical humanitarian aid for 
Palestinians that this Senate, under my leadership, is working to 
deliver.
  So I rise in this Chamber today. I am speaking up to issue a warning, 
informed by lessons of history too often forgotten. No matter what our 
beliefs, no matter where we stand on the war in Gaza, all of us must 
condemn anti-Semitism with full-throated clarity wherever we see it 
before it metastasizes into something even worse because, right now, 
that is what Jewish Americans fear most.
  The spike in anti-Semitism we are experiencing right now in America 
began after the worst instance of violence committed against Jewish 
people since the Holocaust. The vitriol against Israel in the wake of 
October 7 is all too often crossing the line into brazen and widespread 
anti-Semitism, the likes of which we haven't seen for generations in 
this country, if ever, which is why we need to name it clearly anytime 
we see it.
  After October 7, when boycotts were organized against Jewish 
businesses in Philadelphia that have nothing to do with Israel, that is 
anti-Semitism.
  After October 7, when swastikas appeared on Jewish delis on the Upper 
East Side, that is anti-Semitism.
  After October 7, when protesters in California shouted at Jewish 
Americans, ``Hitler should have smashed you,'' that is anti-Semitism.
  After October 7, when a Jewish U.S. Senator was violently threatened 
for her views on Israel, that is anti-Semitism.
  After October 7, when students on college campuses across the country 
who wear a yarmulke or display a Jewish star are harassed, verbally 
vilified, pushed, even spat upon and punched, that is anti-Semitism.
  After October 7, when an author in a prominent leftwing magazine 
labeled the pro-Israeli rally in Washington a ``hate rally,'' that is 
anti-Semitism. I attended that rally--like tens of thousands, hundreds 
of thousands of others--because I believe there should be a place of 
refuge for the Jewish people, not because I wish violence on 
Palestinians or any other people.
  And, Mr. President, after October 7, when students at Hillcrest High 
School in Queens ran rampant in the hallways and demanded the firing of 
a teacher--these are high school students demanding the firing of a 
teacher--just because that teacher attended a rally supporting Israel 
and forced her to hide in a locked office for hours while staff 
struggled to regain control, that is anti-Semitism.

  Walking out of the school to march in support of Palestinians is 
completely legitimate, but forcing a Jewish teacher to remain--as she 
described--locked in an office because she attended a rally in support 
for Israel is anti-Semitism, pure and simple.
  In fact, Mr. President, the teacher whom I am speaking about is 
sitting in the Gallery today, right now. I invited her to come and 
listen, and I am truly honored that she accepted my invitation. That is 
true courage. I believe it shows just how strongly so many Jewish 
Americans feel about the issue.
  She has requested anonymity, which I ask everybody present and 
everyone in the media to please respect, but I say to her from the 
bottom of my heart: Thank you for being here. Thank you for caring.
  I have just listed a few of the so many examples--there are so many 
more--of how the pure, unadulterated anti-Semitism has dramatically 
increased since October 7, but the roots of pluralistic, multiethnic 
democracy are deep in America. This is a place

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where Jewish people have been able to flourish alongside so many other 
immigrant groups. We must never lose sight of just how special that is, 
nor must we ever stop fighting for it.
  All Americans share a responsibility and an obligation to fight back 
whenever we see the rise of prejudice of any type in our midst, to 
preserve this Nation as a promised land of refuge, as a land that 
honors the dignity of every individual, as a land of opportunity for 
all.
  So my plea--my plea, my fervent plea--to the American people of all 
creeds and backgrounds is this: First, learn the history of the Jewish 
people who have been abandoned repeatedly by their fellow countrymen. I 
say this particularly to younger people who didn't live with any of 
this history. Learn the history of the Jewish people who have been left 
isolated and alone to combat anti-Semitism through the centuries.
  Second, reject the illogical and anti-Semitic double standard that is 
once again being applied to the plight of Jewish victims and hostages, 
to some of the actions of the Israeli Government, and even to the very 
existence of a Jewish state. That is a double standard. There is no 
ducking from it.
  Third, understand why Jewish people defend Israel--not because we 
wish harm on Palestinians but because we fear a world where Israel is 
forced to tolerate the existence of groups like Hamas that want to wipe 
out all Jewish people from the planet.
  Some of us watched this film, which the public can't see, which 
showed the brutality and viciousness that every Israeli citizen and 
every Jew feels.
  We fear a world where Israel, a place of refuge for Jewish people, 
will no longer exist. If there is no Israel, there will be no place--no 
place--for Jewish people to go when they are persecuted in other 
countries.
  As an adult, I remember watching my grandfather, one of the few in 
his family to survive the Holocaust, being overwhelmed by emotion and 
breaking down in tears when he saw Israel for the first time. This had 
nothing to do with politics or with money or with racism or oppression. 
It was deeply human--the emotional catharsis of a man whose family was 
uprooted and exterminated finally stepping foot in the place of refuge 
for his people, the place that the Jewish people have yearned for not 
just for decades, for centuries, but for millennia.
  So many of my aunts and uncles and cousins and nieces and nephews 
would be alive today had Israel existed before World War II, as I said 
before.
  Many Jewish Americans fear what the future may bring based on the 
repeated lessons of history. Many Jewish Americans see clear anti-
Semitism in the double standard that is being wielded by too many 
opponents of Israel, and we see it in attacks on Jewish people for 
simply being Jewish, apart from having anything to do with Israel. And 
maybe worst of all, many Jewish Americans feel alone to face all of 
this, abandoned by too many of our friends and allies in our greatest 
time of need, as anti-Semitic hate crimes skyrocket across the country.
  I implore every person, every community, every institution to stand 
with Jewish Americans--not to ignore it, not to shrug your shoulders--
to denounce anti-Semitism in all its forms, especially the double 
standard that has been wielded against the Jewish people for 
generations to isolate us.
  The time for solidarity must be now. Nothing less than the future of 
the American experiment hangs in the balance. Building a more perfect 
Union, one that fulfills our founding ideals, is our longest and most 
solemn struggle as a country. And as Americans, we are called on to do 
all we can to achieve that higher standard.
  We are stewards of the flames of liberty, tolerance, and equality 
that warm our American melting pot and make it possible for Jewish 
Americans to prosper alongside Palestinian Americans and every other 
immigrant group from all over the world.
  Are we a nation that can defy the regular course of human history 
where the Jewish people have been ostracized, expelled, and massacred 
over and over again? I believe--truly believe in my heart--that the 
answer can and must be a resounding yes, and I will do everything in my 
power as Senate majority leader, as a Jewish American, as a citizen of 
a free society, as a human being, to make it happen.
  Ken y'hi ratzon. May it be God's will.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. SCHATZ. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.