[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 145 (Tuesday, September 15, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4702-S4703]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Anti-Semitism

  Ms. ROSEN. Madam President, this past weekend, Jews across the 
country and around the globe celebrated Rosh Hashanah, bringing in the 
new year with hope and excitement for what is to come. Now we are just 
days away from the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur, when 
we take time to reflect on the year ahead and atone for actions we have 
taken in the past year.
  The 10 days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are the most sacred 
and widely observed time in the Jewish calendar. This is a time we all 
come together with family and friends and loved ones, a time for 
reflection, for gratitude, and for celebrating the traditions that 
connect us to one another and the generations before us.
  Unfortunately, for too many American Jews, the High Holidays are now 
also bringing something else: fear. While Jewish families are preparing 
to hear the shofar and gather around their holiday tables, synagogue 
leaders and their congregations are asking themselves questions that no 
one should ever have to ask before they go to worship, before they go 
to pray, before they go to a sanctuary. They are asking: Is our place 
of worship safe? Do we have enough security? Are our doors secure? Do 
we have enough cameras? What happens if someone targets our 
congregation? What if there is an active shooter? Do we know all the 
exits? Do we know what to do? Do we know where to go? These are the 
questions that no one who goes to worship should ever have to ask in 
this country, and yet it is a reality for too many Jewish communities 
today.
  Of course, if you look at the data, these fears are not unfounded. 
According to a recent ADL report, 2025 was the third highest year for 
anti-Semitic incidents in the United States since the ADL began 
collecting data, and physical assaults against Jews were higher in 2025 
than ever before.
  The FBI data has shown that Jewish Americans were the target of 
nearly 70 percent--70 percent--of religiously motivated hate crimes in 
this country in 2025 despite making up just 2 percent of the 
population.
  This data corresponds to horrific incidents we have seen on news 
reports this past year, including a historic synagogue in Jackson, MS, 
being firebombed and Jewish congregations defaced in Austin, TX; 
Albuquerque, NM; Hot Springs, AR; and Oak Park, MI. And in West 
Bloomfield, MI, a man drove his car into a building housing a synagogue 
and a preschool and then opened fire--opened fire.
  I wish I could say these were isolated incidents, but I can't. These 
incidents are part of an alarming trend. Jews in America are facing the 
kind of hatred that reminds us that anti-Semitism is not something of 
the past. It is not something that we only read about in history books, 
though they have shown us what happens when anti-Semitism is allowed to 
take hold of a society.
  I recently returned from Poland, where I visited the Auschwitz-
Birkenau Memorial and Museum. The preserved grounds of the 
concentration and extermination camps stand as a testament--a sad 
testament--of what can happen when hatred is allowed to reach its most 
evil form. It happened after years and years of increasing 
discrimination, violence, and marginalization that went unchecked--went 
unchecked.
  There are countless lessons of the Holocaust, but one of the 
strongest ones is what can happen when ordinary people look at hatred 
with indifference. The Holocaust did not only happen because of the 
Nazis, but because of the millions of people who also kept silent in 
the face of dehumanization and prejudice. They kept silent, and this 
indifference allowed for the murder of 6 million Jews, as well as 
millions of others.
  This is why we must recommit ourselves to relearning these lessons 
and not allowing hatred to go ignored in our country today--in our 
country.
  So during the August State work period, I also met with rabbis from 
four congregations in Southern Nevada to discuss how they are preparing 
for the High Holidays. They all shared the same concern: physical 
safety of their congregations, of their congregants, of people who come 
to worship, from the newborn all the way to the oldest senior citizen.
  We talked about the security preparations they have to make during 
this time of year and the costs that go along with them. We talked 
about the fear that comes with knowing that a place of worship can 
become a target in an instant--we all know this--and the burden that 
falls upon synagogue leaders and volunteers to protect their place of 
worship, their congregants, their families, and their friends.
  And it is a burden I know all too well. Before I came to the Senate, 
I served as president of the largest Reform synagogue in Nevada. I know 
exactly what it takes to prepare a congregation for High Holidays, and 
I know that security plans have become an unfortunate and expensive 
part of that preparation.
  In fact, security costs are usually the largest portion of a 
synagogue's budget now--the largest portion of the budget because they 
have to pay for hiring guards, installing barricades, adding 
bulletproof glass to windows, reinforcing doors, and metal detectors.
  You have to walk through a metal detector and screening to get into 
my synagogue now.
  According to a recent study from the Jewish Federations of North 
America, the Jewish community spends an average of $1 billion a year 
now--$1 billion a year now--on security. It is a record high--billions 
of dollars just to worship safely.
  So think about that for a moment. In the United States, in 2026, we 
have Americans who have to worship behind locked doors and bulletproof 
glass, protected by armed guards, just to be with their family and 
friends and pray.
  Imagine if you didn't feel it was safe to go worship, gather 
together.
  And we can't ask these communities to shoulder that burden alone. 
This is exactly why I have always supported fully funding and reforming 
the Nonprofit Security Grant Program.
  This program helps synagogues and other houses of worship and other 
at-risk institutions make critical security improvements for the safety 
of their congregations. It is a lifesaving program that helps the 
Jewish community and other religious communities, as well, that are at 
risk of violence. It helps them offset the cost of keeping themselves 
and their families safe, which is why I introduced bipartisan 
legislation to nearly triple the funding for the Nonprofit Security 
Grant Program and to improve it, to make sure that the money actually 
gets to the communities that need it.
  My Jewish American Security Act, which I introduced with Senator 
Lankford and a broad bipartisan coalition of Senators, would also 
create a new Department of Justice grant program to help State and 
local law enforcement increase security around at-risk houses of 
worship.

[[Page S4703]]

  And these additional protections, well, they mean the difference 
between walking into a synagogue and thinking about prayer or walking 
into your synagogue and looking for the exits and thinking about what 
your escape route might be. These additional protections are about 
making sure that a child can walk into a preschool or a Hebrew school 
and think about learning, not about an active-shooter drill. And they 
are about making sure that our houses of worship remain what they are 
supposed to be: places of faith, places of community, places of peace.
  I often say that anti-Semitism is a canary in a coal mine; it is a 
warning sign. When hatred against one community is allowed to grow, it 
threatens all of us. So we cannot wait for the next attack. We cannot 
wait for another synagogue to be targeted, and we cannot wait for 
another family to be afraid just to walk through the doors of their own 
house of worship anywhere. We have to act now. We have to act now, 
before it is too late.
  And as Jewish families gather together in the coming days for Yom 
Kippur, they will reflect on the year behind them and the year ahead. 
So please let us all commit ourselves to doing everything that we can 
to make sure that those families can worship safely and in peace.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.